Group items tagged

This is an amazing site that is current.  It is called the National Security Archive.  It has recent documents from the Iraq War, the Torture Archive and September 11th.  This site would be excellent for many classrooms.  A current events teacher might use it, as well as history, language arts, or government.  

Excellent site to explore everything there is to know about the United States government. Photos, facts and explanations on the White House.

Labeled "Facts and Fun for all Ages." Photos and basic information about the White House, the presidents, presidential pets and fun historical facts. Main focuses: presidents and White House. Visually pleasing, easy-to-use.

This site provides information about the various branches of the U.S. government, all of the U.S. presidents, the current administration, current issues, and the White House itself. It would be a good resource for social studies or history students

This site contains a wealth of resources for teachers. They have primary source sets that include teacher resource booklets and lesson plans. One of the sets I found useful was one on the Constitution that included newspaper articles and original documents that trace the drafting and adoption of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. This set would be useful for all grade levels for Constitution day materials in September. There was also an interesting primary source set on Thanksgiving that had paintings and photographs showing historical perspectives on American Thanksgiving traditions.

While the Library of Congress website is vast, I found the Classroom Resources section under the Teachers heading to be beneficial for my current position as a third grade classroom teacher; although many of the items I saw could be used at any elementary grade level. I found the Primary Sources by State and Immigration Challenges to be beneficial to my current unit in my district's SS program. The Thanksgiving link would be interesting for the students to see and discover things they didn't know before celebrating this holiday. I'll definitely use this site with my students, because it goes so well with what we're studying. Plus, it creates a more 'real' experience than their textbook allows.

This website offers powerful images touching on current events from around the world. While the text would be challenging for most of my elementary students; I think the images are so telling that they would be a useful tool to teach students how to read pictures and some other powerful visual and media literacy skills.

The Newseum is an actual brick and mortar museum located in Washington, D.C. Its website contains an eye-opening feature called "Today's Front Pages," which publishes front pages from newspapers around the world (see link on the right sidebar). Excellent source for teaching Media Literacy by demonstrating how differences in societies and cultures frame news stories differently. Especially fitting for journalism and social studies classes. Varies from many of my chosen sites because it displays current primary sources.

This site is great for K-12 students. It contains current event articles on a large scale of topics to keep high school students engaged in the world around them. There is a special "Kids" page with interactive games and lessons for teachers. This is a phenomenal site for educators.

The MedlinePlus website would be very valuable for students in middle and high school grades doing research about diseases and health related topics. MedlinePlus provides health information and documents from the world's largest medical library, the National Library of Medicine. MedlinePlus is updated daily and has current reliable information on over 800 diseases and conditions. I especially found interesting the video footage of numerous actual surgeries narrated by doctors to treat major medical conditions.

This site explains disasters of all kids. It focuses on weather. hiss site would be useful when teaching weather and getting kids to understand the different aspects of weather. It's also good to know about the different kinds of disasters so you can be prepared! Kids love learning about different disasters they are unfamiliar with.

This site gives information about Federal Emergency Management Agency. It provides links to games and interactive sites that help kids understand the agency, what it does, types of weather emergencies and how to be prepared for weather emergencies. This would be a good addition/extension to a weather unit in 3rd-5th science curriculum.

An animated site geared toward elementary students with information on FEMA. Includes follow up quizzes, template for planning family disaster drills and an interactive map showing current FEMA efforts in U. S. disaster areas. Good companion to current events and science.

What a fun site. The games were great because there were so many applications: SS, Science, Math and more. I loved seeing how the quarter was made and comparing and contrasting it to coins across the world. I've already used this site with my class, because a couple of my students filled out wanting to know more about other country's coins in the KWL for our current SS chapter. They LOVED seeing this!

I really like this site. It has information on the current Iditarod dog race in Alaska. There are blogs you can follow and a special "Teacher on the Trail" section that is specific to helping classes follow the race, and understand it. There is a reading project, a writing to the mushers project, and virtual field trips.

This website allows k-12 students access to current information on all areas of space study. There are games, research tools, images, videos, and opportunities for students to explore. The site breaks down the grade levels into K-4, 5-8, and 9-12.

This website provides a wealth of primary resources for students doing research on Astronomy topics. The student website has the research tools divided by grade levels. There are stories, image galleries, and video footage that allow students to explore space science.

NOAA has primary resource collections on the Gulf oil spill, hurricanes, El Nino, tides and sea turtles. I really like the way they feature current topics of importance in the news right now. This would be a great way to teach media literacy to our students. They also have a feature activity section called "Data in the Classroom" where students can make real world connections with real data related to El Nino, sea level, and water quality.

This site is an excellent weather website with resource collections divided into the following areas: ocean and coasts, climate, weather and atmosphere, marine life (sea turtles), freshwater (water cycle), and special topics. There data visualizations for weather events, lots of maps and charts for middle/high school students to analyze weather events, water cycle lessons, and a section with activities for teachers to bring real world data into the classroom.