Social Studies, Government, and History

Featured Sites

History

History on the Web Database
HyperHistory is an expanding scientific project presenting 3,000 years of world history with an interactive combination of lifelines, timelines, and maps.
Have Fun with History - Free streaming history videos and activities, many different topics
HippoCampus - US History online textbook
History Channel – Video and Audio
American Rhetoric - online speech bank
Digital History - A valuable resource for those who seek information on U.S. history with an extensive audio-visual archive and an up-to-date textbook, essays on film, private life, and science and technology, and visual histories about Lincoln's America and America's Reconstruction, also includes primary sources such as gravestones, historical advertising, and letters to give a more vivid picture of American History. The site also includes numerous reference materials including lesson plans and resource guides. If you have a question you and you can't find the answer, there is a feature that allows you to pose questions to professional historians. The site is enjoyable even if you don't have to research.
Center for History and New Media – "Providing free access to primary sources, building high-quality online teaching modules, and offering instruction on critical thinking skills"
GIS for History – "The goal of the project is to create and share history curriculum materials and lesson plans using historical census data and primary source on-line documents, within a web-based GIS."
Ease History - "Learn about US History through the prism of US presidential campaign ads, better understand the complexities of campaign issues and their historical context by looking at historical events, and explore the meanings of core values by examining how these values have been applied in both historical events and campaign ads."
Conversations with History - Distinguished men and women from all over the world talk about their lives and their work. "
Teacher Oz's Kingdom of History - amazingly comprehensive site that links to excellent history resources from Ancient to 20th century U.S.
Women's History Biographies
The People History - links to every decade in the 20th century, good place to study pop culture
iCue - ABC News Video

World History
Teacher Oz's Kingdom of History - amazingly comprehensive site that links to excellent history resources from Ancient to 20th century U.S.
BBC - Romans - Ancient Rome for elementary students
Odyssey Online: Greece
HyperHistory is an expanding scientific project presenting 3,000 years of world history with an interactive combination of lifelines, timelines, and maps.
World digital Library - check out how this site changes images based on the timeline at the bottom of the map
World History Ancient Rome BBC – The Romans
This is a great site! It is very easy to understand and to navigate around for interesting information.
Romans.net - This is a good place to get information about culture.
Rome – Odyssey Online
Maps - Scroll down to use the drop-down menu for specific cities
Ancient Rome Images
Rome – Republic to Empire
Roman Artifacts
Mr. Dowling’s Ancient Rome page – menu for topics is on the right side at the top. Beware of the ads, but this is still a good site.
Ancient Civilizations
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Greece - ages 7 - 9
Ancient Scripts
Ancient China
Ancient History Source Book

Government
U.S. Government Portal
OpenCongress Wiki - "The OpenCongress Wiki is a collaboratively written "citizens' encyclopedia on Congress," designed to shine more light on the workings of the U.S. Congress."
Kids portal from U.S. government
The American Presidency
Presidential Timeline - documents, photographs, audio recordings, and video relating to events in the presidents’ lives, and a multimedia exhibit featuring the key challenges and decisions each faced
American President.org
C-SPAN Classroom
Ben's Guide to Government – Ben's Guide provides information and activities specifically tailored for educators, parents, and students in K-12. These resources can help teach about our government and how it works.
WayBack: Presidents - "the secret history"
**U.S. Government Manual** - provides comprehensive information on the agencies of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches as well as semi-official agencies, international organizations in which the United States participates, and boards, commissions, and committees, also includes the basics of U.S. governmental documents: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Teaching Resources from the Government
iKnowThat - Online educational multimedia games in various topics including geography and history

Primary Sources
Primary sources are artifacts from history such as images, videos, sound files, documents, interviews and other records from events and periods of time. These sites that provide access for this type of media hold sometimes millions of pieces. If you want students to utilize these resources, find relevant collections and/or pieces and provide students with those specific links. Searching through these collections can be overwhelming for students. 
Using Primary Sources- This site gives a good definition and links to websites where many sources can be found
World digital Library - check out how this site changes images based on the timeline at the bottom of the map
Footnote - the place for original historical documents, very well organized content and easy to find some rich media
Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
Our Documents - 100 milestone documents from this country's history
History Matters - Making Sense of Evidence
Archiving Early America - Primary Source Documents from 19th Century
Primary Source Gateway - from University of California
Kathy Schrock Primary Source List
American Memory - Historical collections of primary source documents and multimedia
National Archives
Digital History
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Ellis Island – Most activities require registration
Turning the Pages – British primary source website
The New York Public Library Digital Collection
National Archives - Teaching with Primary Source Documents
Smithsonian - Teaching with Primary Source Documents
Smithsonian Images - Watch for copyright issues
University of Idaho Repository of Primary Sources
The Authentic History Center - Primary Sources from American Popular Culture
The Living Room Candidate - Presidential Campaign Commercials
EASE History - Over 600 videos and photographs are currently available in EASE History.
Museum of Broadcast TV
Greater Cincinnati Memory Project
Calisphere - A world of digital resources, Calisphere is the University of California's free public gateway to a world of primary sources
History Out Loud - Searchable audio files
Internet Archive - video collection
Museum Box - build a description of an event with artifacts from the time period, interactive simulation

Other Cultures
Buddhist Art – great resource for teaching world history
Ancient World Cultures
Odyssey Online – exploring Greece, Rome, and Near East
Ask Asia – check out the teachers link
CIA World Factbook
Peace Corps for Educators - find lesson plans, and multimedia for studying Africa, Asia, South America, and Europe
Ancient China

Native American Cultures
Native American Library of Congress Main Reading: An Annotated Reading List of Websites: Indians of North America: Tribes and Nations
Immigration: Destroying the Native American Cultures
Exploring Native American and Hispanic Culture
Native Wiki
Mr. Donn's Native Americans/First People Lessons & Activities
Native American: National Geographic World Music
Read Write Think: November is National American American Heritage Month

See the World! Geography
Find Country - improve your knowledge of geography
GeoBeats - Guided tours of places all over the world
Panoramas – Views of locations all over the world
Globalis – Interactive World Map
Portals to the World
Flash Earth
EarthCam - Links to webcams across the globe.

Data
U.S. Census Bureau
Cynergy - census data integrated with google maps and weather data

Current Events and Culture
Online Newspapers - from all over the world
World News Interactive Map -
Interactive World News - Click on the country at the top edge to access news sites with headline
Database of Newspapers From Around the World
Database of Newspapers From Around the World from Internet Public Library
Newseum - Front pages of newspapers from all over the world, updated daily
Google Translator - You'll definitely need this if you are reading a newspaper from another country!
International Herald Tribune - The Global Edition of the New York Times
CNN World News
Google World News
National Geographic for Kids Find France
National Geographic Magazine
Google News Archives - find an article from past new events

Current Events and News Websites from the U.S.
CNN Student News
CBBC Newsround - BBC news from the United Kingdom (England) student site
Time for Kids
Current Events
Kidsnewsroom.org
Weekly Reader Online
National Geographic Stories
Scholastic News Online
New York Times Learning Network
Channel One - News
StudentNews
DOGO News - Kids News for current events, sports, entertainment and more
PBS Newhour Extra - teacher center


Other Useful Sites
Independent Lens presents a selection of Web-exclusive content inspired by independent film.
World Almanac for Kids - Check out the "Explore" link first! This is a great resource for children to find brief, factual information about almost everything relating to government, history, science, and just cool stuff!
Elementary Social Studies
The First Thanksgiving – You are the historian
Structured Curriculum Handbook for Social Science from CPS