Online+Resources+and+Apps.+for+Social+Studies

U.S. History &Government

 * Zinn Education Project || The Zinn Education Project offers free, downloadable U.S. History lessons and articles organized by theme, time period and reading level. ||
 * Docs Teach || Thousands of historical documents from the National Archives. Plus, ready-to-use activities to pair with the documents. Search by historical era or make your own activity. ||
 * America in the 20th Century || Program clips and teacher resources for the Progressive Era, World War 1, The Great Depression, Vietnam, Cold War, Civil Rights movement and more. ||
 * Harpweek || These historical and political cartoons make great discussion starters or classroom warm-ups for U.S. History lessons. (also take a look at education.harpweek.com) ||
 * Digital Vaults || View digital versions of the nation's most important historical documents. ||
 * US History.org Historical Documents || Use the easy-to-read text versions of the United States' most important documents to familiarize your students with the words that shaped the government and culture of their country. ||
 * Finishing the Dream || Over one hundred Civil Rights Era clips form the NBC News archive. ||
 * 100 Milestone Documents || These 100 documents chronicle United States History from 1776 to 1965. You can view a digital copy of each document and also read an excerpt that gives background information about the document. ||
 * Street Law Landmark Cases || This site provides teachers with a wide range of resources and activities to support the teaching of landmark Supreme Court Cases and helping students explore key issues of each case. ||
 * The Library of Congress || Biggest collection of historical memories, prints, photographs, newspapers, sound recordings, films, maps, manuscripts and more. ||
 * Charters of Freedom || Website that allows you to view digital versions of the nations most important historic documents. ||
 * Picture History || The Picture History Collection includes 18th, 19th and 20th century images. It specializes in American Presidents, the White House, and the iconic people, scenes, and events that tell the story of American History. ||
 * Oyez Project || A database on major constitutional cases heard by the United States Supreme Court, with multimedia resources including digital audio of oral arguments. ||
 * Chronicling America || Search through pages of America's historic newspapers from 1836-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published from 1690 to the present. ||
 * American Rhetoric || American Rhetoric is an index of over 5,000 textual, audio and video versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates interviews and more. ||
 * Constitution Facts || Contains information and facts about the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, Founding Fathers and Supreme Court. ||
 * United States Holocaust Memorial Online Exhibitions || An online version of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's exhibitions on Rescue and Resistance, Anti-Semitism, Propaganda, Persecution, Camps, the Aftermath and more. ||
 * Chronicle of Revolution || Chronicle of Revolution provides students with a detailed look at the events that contributed to the start of the American Revolution by reading newspaper articles from key cities. ||
 * Mission U.S. || Project that immerses players in U.S. history content through free interactive games, this also includes teacher materials. **Target grade area 5-8.** ||
 * American History Demographic Chart Book || A demographic history of the United States dating back to the first census in 1790. It includes maps, information on population growth and distribution, ethnicity, age, home ownership, education, occupation and more. ||
 * Civil War 150 || An interactive map/timeline/infographic hybrid that is packed with cool facts about the Civil War. ||
 * Fold 3 || This website is an online collection of historical military records. There are millions of images and documents that can be searched and annotated with additional information. ||
 * Law Focused Education || Entertaining games and animations covering topics including checks & balances, federalism, popular sovereignty, separation of powers, Bill of Rights, Preamble of the Constitution, American symbols and more. ||

World History
visit any civilization, nation or empire. Now contains over 650 history maps and over 1,000 pages of high quality supporting narrative all made easy to navigate via our TimeMap interface. || Videos || Watch video clips from the History Channel on a variety of topics including the American Revolution, American Civil War, World War II, the Titanic, Black History Month, Ancient Civilizations and more. ||
 * TimeMap || The TimeMap of World History is an interactive history atlas and timeline that lets you navigate to any era of history to
 * Spartacus Educational || This online encyclopedia focuses on historical topics and figures from England, the United States, Russia, Germany and France. All of the articles are easy-to-digest and are written for students. ||
 * Online Hieroglyphics Translator || Type in a phrase and see what it looks like when it’s translated to Egyptian Hieroglyphics. This is a cool activity to do if you’re covering Ancient Egypt. ||
 * Women in World History || Over 200 primary source materials about women in world history including photographs, propaganda, commentary and teaching materials. These materials are great discussion and essay starters. ||
 * HyperHistory || This site covers 3000 years of world history including culture, religion, politics and historical figures. ||
 * History World || History World contains over 300 narrative histories weaving through time a interconnecting. You can find text, images, narratives, links and maps. ||
 * EyeWitness to History || Your ringside seat to history - from the Ancient World to the present. History through the eyes of those who lived it, presented by Ibis Communications, Inc. A digital publisher of educational programming. ||
 * World History Wikipedia || World history as it is used here is about the study of the cultural achievements of the entire human race. This includes the time from prehistory to the end of the 20th century and excludes natural history before the development of human beings. ||
 * History.com
 * Go Social Studies Go || This is a fun site created by an actual teacher. Links for World History, US History, Geography, and World Religion. This site includes text, audio and video links, and more. ||
 * The Avalon Project || Created by Yale Law School, this site provides several documents on law, history and diplomacy. ||
 * Playing History || Playing History aggregates all of the free history games on the web into a simple, searchable database. ||
 * World History for Us All || This site offers a treasury of teaching units, lesson plans, and resources. ||
 * Bridging World History || 26 thematic world history units include videos, an audio glossary and a database of over 1,500 images and maps. Use Bridging World History to teach your students about the ties that bind historical events together. ||

Social Studies Materials

 * Edsitement || High quality lesson plans, activities and student resources for history and social studies, sortable by grade level. ||
 * C-SPAN Classroom || Primary source materials for Social Studies teachers. ||
 * GoEd Online || Aside from having an awesome blog, GoEd online is a one-stop resource for fun social studies materials. ||

Civics

 * Project Vote Smart's VoteEasy || See how your views match up with those of major political candidates. Learn their stance on topics like abortion, economy, guns, health care, immigration and more. ||
 * CIRCLE || The official website of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning is home to information on the civic and political engagement of young Americans. There are a lot of cool graphs and charts that will get your students excited about fulfilling their civic duties. ||
 * iCivics || Free lesson plans and interactive games for learning civics. Some fo the topics covered by materials at iCivics include citizenship and participation, separation of powers, branches of government and budgeting. ||
 * Vote: The Machinery of Democracy || This website teaches your students how ballots and voting systems have changed over the years in response to political, social and technological change. ||

Culture & Geography

 * Mental Floss' Geography Challenge || A fun, yet difficult, geography trivia game that tests your knowledge of where countries are located. ||
 * Nations Illustrated || View pictures from all over the world. ||
 * Traveler IQ Challenge || A very fun geography game. Over 42,000 people have "liked" it on Facebook. ||
 * GeoBeats || A web site that hosts hundreds of short, guided video tours of the most famous cities throughout the world. ||
 * Google Earth || Google Earth puts the planet's geographic information at your fingertips and can be used in a variety of educational activities. You can find training videos and blog discussions at this site to provide you with new ideas. ||
 * Culture Crossing || This site provides a guide to culture, customs, social, business and study abroad etiquette for every country in the world. It allows people to share essential tips with each other about how to navigate our increasingly borderless world with savvy and sensitivity. ||

Printable Maps & Mapping Tools

 * ScribbleMaps || Easily draw on Google Maps and then share with your students or post to your teacher blog. ||
 * QuickMaps || QuickMap's slogan is "Doodle on Google!" It's another free and easy way to draw on Google Maps. ||
 * Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection || High-quality historic, thematic and topographic maps of the world including Africa, the Americas, Asia, Austrailia/Pacific, Europe, Middle East, Polar regions, Oceans and United States. ||
 * Printable World Maps || Free printable maps of the world's countries. Each map is a blank outline. ||
 * National Geographic Education: Mapping || Free, printable 1-page maps, printable large-format maps and an online interactive student map. ||
 * Mapping History || Animated socio and political maps of 18th and 19th century United States, Europe, Latin America and Africa. ||
 * BBC Dimensions || This website takes important place and events, and overlays them onto a map. Just type in a zip code. Use it to show your students how large something like the Great Wall of China or the battle of Stalingrad really is/was! ||

Interactive Timelines

 * Timerime || Search for pre-made, media rich timelines or make your own. Can set up a free account or pay for an educational account that gives you access to more classroom management features. ||
 * [|xTimeline] || xtimeline is a free web-based timeline. Easily create and share timelines with pictures and videos. ||
 * Time Toast || All you need is a valid email address to create interactive timelines that can be shared anywhere on the web. ||
 * Capzles || Create your own sharable timeline with images, video, audio, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint and PDF files. This would also work well to capture field trips or the end of year sports highlights. ||
 * Tiki Toki || Easily create stunning web-based, sharable timelines with images and video. Tiki Toki also has a group editing feature for collaboration with their Teacher Paid Version. ||

Current Events

 * [|Google News Archive] || This news archive allows you to search by phrase, date, source and location. ||
 * Time || This site covers news feeds on the US, Politics, World, Business, Tech, Health, Science, Entertainment, Sports and more. ||
 * New York Times || Visit this site to access an American daily newspaper founded and continually published in New York City since 1851. You can also access many great video clips, blogs and more. ||
 * Newseum || View today's front page from more than 800 newspapers worldwide. Use this website to demonstrate how different cultures can perceive the same event. Includes a link to teacher and student resources. ||
 * Cagle || A daily compilation of editorial cartoons from around the world that cover current events and important issues. ||
 * Clay Bennett Cartoons Archive || Modern cartoons on a range of topics including individual liberties, global warming, lobby reform, congress, and a link to the Pulitzer Prize cartoons. ||
 * Omaha.com || Statewide news. ||
 * Lincoln Journal Star || Another statewide news site. ||

Economics

 * [|Practical Money Skills] || Practical Money Skills is a resource for educators, parents and students focused on financial literacy skills. Lesson plans with curriculum materials are available for Pre-K to College age students. ||
 * Econ Ed Link || EconEdLink is the leading source of online economic & personal finance lessons & resources for educators, students and afterschool providers. ||
 * Numbeo || Numbeo is the biggest free database about cost of living worldwide! You can compare cost of living, property prices, traffic rate, crime rate, health care, pollution and quality of life. ||
 * Living Wage Calculator || This living wage calculator estimates the cost of living in your community or region. The calculator lists typical expenses, the living wage and typical wages for the selected location. ||

Informational Resources

 * ZIP Skinny || Enter in a U.S. zip code to get the latest in census data including detailed demographics. ||
 * CIA World Factbook || The World Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities. The Reference tab includes: maps of the major world regions, as well as Flags of the World, a Physical Map of the World, a Political Map of the World, a World Oceans map, and a Standard Time Zones of the World map. ||
 * World Flag Index || A listing of all of the flags from each of the world's countries, territories and sub-national regions. Some of the listings also include basic information about the area. ||
 * 50 States || Find information about each of the 50 states, including: state trees, state songs, state flowers, state tax forms, sport teams, city guides and more. This site also includes many maps and study tools. ||
 * Google Scholar || Google Scholar is a simple search engine that specializes in scholarly literature. It allows you to search across many sources including articles, books, court opinions, online repositories, university libraries and more. Now you can even copy & paste formatted citations from search results! ||
 * Wolfram Alpha || This is a computational knowledge engine that allows you to search for information about government, historical events, political figures, important documents and more. ||

Other Web 2.0 Resources

 * Poll Everywhere || An inexpensive and quick alternative for clicker response systems. Create a poll in 30 seconds without having to sign up. Your students can take the poll with any device with the link or they can also text responses. ||
 * Wikispaces || With a free option for K-12 teachers, Wikispaces is a great tool for making custom webpages that your students can edit together. You can manage privacy settings, create student accounts without email addresses, and embed media. ||
 * Quizlet || One of the largest and most popular flashcard creation websites around. You can access many flashcard sets already created and customize your own. ||
 * Socrative || Socrative is a smart student response system that empowers teachers by engaging their classrooms with a series of educational exercises and games. Our apps are super simple and take seconds to login. Socrative runs on tablets, smartphones, and laptops . ||
 * ClassMarker || ClassMarker is an online quiz and test creation website. As an educator, you get 100 free tests taken (and graded) per month. ||
 * LiveBinders || Your 3-ring binder for the web, collect your resources, organize them neatly and easily, make an impression. ||

iPad Apps.
Age of Discovery || Explore the new world as a European power in the 15th Century by funding and sending expeditions out in to the unknown. Hire captains, build ships and outfit voyages to learn of the wonders of the new world. Expeditions can be dangerous however, so be careful or else Europe may never hear of your discoveries! ||
 * Atlas for iPad Free || Atlas for iPad features valuable information and maps on over 250 world entities. ||
 * Constitution for iPad || Reference copy of the US Constitution for your iPad. Includes text, notes, and images of original documents. ||
 * Declaration for iPad || Reference copy of the US Declaration of Independence for your iPad. Includes text, notes and images of original documents. ||
 * Early Jamestown || This is an interactive textbook exploration of the early days of the Jamestown settlement and the state of Virginia. Embedded videos chronicle the beginnings of the Jamestown Settlement, the first permanent English colony in North America. ||
 * European Exploration:The
 * Fotopedia Heritage || Created in cooperation with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Fotopedia Heritage provides a virtual passport to the hundreds of sites that constitute the world's collective cultural and natural human legacy. It includes 30,000 photos. ||
 * History Line || History Line is a collaborative learning game for the iPad focusing on US History. The game can be played by 1-6 players. As a single player game, a series of historical events are presented on the screen and the goal of the game is to place the events into a timeline at the bottom of the screen in the correct sequence. ||
 * Lincoln Telegrams || The Lincoln Telegrams project includes over three hundred digitized telegram memos written by President Abraham Lincoln between March 10, 1864 and April 12, 1865. ||
 * MyCongress || MyCongress is a portal to detailed information about your elected U.S. Congressional officials. Track their news, video and Twitter feeds. Look up their official Open Congress profile or contact them directly. MyCongress helps you get in touch with your government. ||
 * Pass the Past || Pass the Past is an educational game to help students prepare for Virginia's Standards of Learning exams with a focus on World, United States, and Virginia history, civics, and geography. ||
 * The Presidency || The Presidency app is an excellent educational reference for easy access to historical information regarding the 44 United States presidents. ||
 * Show of Hands || Show of Hands is an easy-to-use real-time ANONYMOUS polling application for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Poll topics include politics, ethics, pop-culture, sports, parenting, health, and humor. ||
 * Today's Documents || Explore American History with 365 of the most fascinating documents and photos from the collections of the US National Archives. Today's Document is an interactive gallery that displays a significant historical document or photo for each day of the year. You can learn what happened on your birthday, search for a document by keyword, or just browse at your leisure. ||
 * US History Timeline (free) || This si an application which shows the list of important events from US history. Each event includes a hot-link to the appropriate entry of Wikipedia. ||
 * U.S. Westward Expansion || Explore the westward expansion of United States history in the 1800s as you journey on the Lewis and Clark expedition, match territories acquired by the U.S., and learn about the causes and effects of the westward expansion. ||
 * World Book - This Day in History for iPad || This Day in History for iPad is an interactive multimedia calendar that displays historical events for the current day or any selected day, along with related media such as photos, illustrations, music, and speeches. ||