4410 social-studies results | sort by:
American Centuries - Memorial Hall Museum Online
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): colonial america (96), england (49), slavery (77)
In the Classroom
Browse the collection for images and descriptions of specific artifacts. Explore themes like Shay's Rebellion, the lives of African-Americans in early rural New England, or the Civil War era in New England. Interactive activities allow you to look at Early American tools, examine artifacts using a 360 degree view or see what clothing was worn (down to the underwear!) by people of the time. If you plan to share objects as part of a lesson "collect" them in a personal collection so you can pull them up easily. Challenge secondary students to use the activity labeled "Create a chronology" to group artifacts from the collections to illustrate a concept, such as slavery, clothing, or background of an author, artist, or historical event. With younger students, use one or more of the activities on an interactive whiteboard or projector or design a simple scavenger hunt within YOUR collection of objects for students to find out about colonial life and times. If you turn them loose on the entire site, you will never get them back.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Endangered Animals in Africa - Africa Conservation Fund
Grades
3 to 12tag(s): africa (162), animals (276), conservation (110), environment (252)
In the Classroom
Once you become familiar with specific naturalist bloggers on this site, you may want to revisit their posts throughout your unit on animals, biodiversity, or the environment. These real world connections would be good lesson starters. Teachers may also use this site when studying world cultures and geography of Africa. Elementary teachers will want to share selected portions of this site on an interactive whiteboard or projector as they teach about animal habitats and adaptations. Since some of the incidents that threaten the animals may be involve violence or be frightening to students, teachers should preview before sharing with younger students. The reading levels are adult, so this is not a good site to suggest for elementary students to use independently.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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World News - WN Network
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): news (221)
In the Classroom
Share this site with your school's foreign language teachers. Have students do comparisons between English and foreign language versions of the news. If you teach writing, you can find controversial topics as writing prompts for persuasive writing among the articles, as well, and have students find facts to support their positions. Make this site available from your teacher web page for current events assignments. Reading teachers will want to use the articles on an interactive whiteboard to teach main idea and summarizing: highlight key words to use in a main idea or summary sentence you write together below the article.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Hyper History Online - The World History Project
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): biographies (96), politics (123)
In the Classroom
Use this site for context regarding what was going on all over the world at any given time, especially as you launch class discussion of a new topic or time period. Help students see relationships between what they know and what else was occurring at the same time. Use it to pose questions about how events and people may be related, as well. This site will work very well on a projector or interactive whiteboard.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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World Climate - Robert Hoare
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): climate (95), earth (195), earth day (61), environment (252), temperature (34), weather (175)
In the Classroom
Use the data along with world maps (or Google Earth) for students to draw conclusions about geographic features and weather or to collect weather data over a time period to compare seasonal differences between northern and southern hemispheres. As part of an Earth Day or climate comparison activity, have students create a color-coded climate data "globe" in small groups, showing major cities and their weather data by color. You can use basketballs and sticky colored contact paper to cut out continents and climate zones, or have students make the map on an interactive whiteboard using a globe projection and highlghter tools in different colors. Older students can use the raw data as part of study of climate and cultural differences, environmental issues, or related topics.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Inventing Modern America: Games - Lemelson-MIT
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): inventors and inventions (89)
In the Classroom
Use an interactive whiteboard to play the games in science class as you talk about inventions, engineering, and the inquiry process that drives them or as an interdisciplinary connection in your lessons on inventions and the Industrial Revolution.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Fun Icebreaker Ideas & Activities - icebreakers.ws
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): back to school (53), firstday (25), newbies (9), remote learning (32), substitutes (25)
In the Classroom
New or veteran teachers who want students to get to know each other as they enter a new school (starting middle school, for example), want to observe them so YOU get to know them, or need to build better team skills with a challenging class or club, will find ideas to try. Mark this one as a Favorite so you can find it again, since "first day" activities tend to get lost in the flurry -- and in the fading memory -- during the year.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Essay Exchange Unit - George Cassutto
Grades
9 to 12While this site does give a template of lessons for students to follow as a guide, teachers have a wide range of flexibility with it. Topics can be about anything of your choosing; the length of time given to the lesson and the type and amount of feedback is controlled. While this project started within the subject of Social Studies, this unit can be used in conjunction with any subject.
tag(s): writing (307)
In the Classroom
Teachers can adapt the assignment to use other genres of expression to evaluate student performance. All subject area teachers can integrate the procedures listed to develop on-line projects for their students. The ideal places to post papers for feedback and final publication would be on a blog (for comments) or wiki (for collaborative editing and additions).Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Neoclassicism/Romanticism Unit - Jay Horschak
Grades
10 to 12tag(s):
In the Classroom
Try the unit as is or adapt for your needs. Students may also post information about their projects to the N/R e-mail discussion list(s) they have joined and request feedback-- be sure to get parent permission if you have students share anything online. Completed projects can be posted, where possible, to a class Web page or wiki to serve as a resource for students in the school and for participants in the discussion lists who provided feedback on the projects.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Video Teleconference Survey - Gerry Del Monico
Grades
7 to 10In the Classroom
The contemporary topic and the hands-on experience of making and doing a survey is quite appealing to students. This site, which does include lesson plans, maps out how to do this step-by-step with students and have the culminating project actually be interactive with students somewhere else. This is a great site to get your feet wet is you have not done either surveys or video-conferencing before.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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U.S. Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud - Chirag Mehta
Grades
9 to 12tag(s): debate (38), elections (87), politics (123), speech (66), speeches (22)
In the Classroom
Share the tag cloud on a projector-- or ideally interactive whiteboard-- as you ask students to hypothesize about the words that appear at key times: the start of a war, after Sept 11, etc. Then include the link on your teacher web page so you can assign them (in or out of class) to write an essay or prepare a visual presentation explaining why certain terms were vital in the political and policy landscape of the times. Using primary sources from the Library of Congress American Memory Collection, students can create multimedia (PowerPoint or video) shows "portraying" a year, decade, or era and the importance of its tagged words (Word art would make a great way to show the words on screen).With the 2008 presidential election quickly approaching, have students analyze presidential speeches and create their own Speech Tag Clouds about the message. Or have students create a "mock" candidate and then design a "tag cloud" about the candidate.
Note that this tag cloud site DOES identify its sources-- something you want to be sure to highlight to your students. Then ask if students think the choice of sources is the best possible--should it include others?
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Proverbia.net - Vicent Jorda
Grades
3 to 12tag(s): figurative language (19), franklin (12), idioms (29), spanish (112)
In the Classroom
Ask students to find three proverbs unknown to them and explain them visually on a PowerPoint slide (can easily be printed into a big book or poster). Feature a proverb a week in your classroom or on a bulletin board to build analogous thinking, cultural literacy, and inferencing skills as you ask students to explain what it means. This will gently ease your concrete thinkers into broader understanding.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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NationMaster - Luke Metcalfe
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): data (204), statistics (126)
In the Classroom
Provide this resource as a link on your teacher web page or in class for supporting data to be used in discussions or debates. In math classes, use the data to create and compare alternate graphical representations of real-world data. In geography classes, use the site tools to see correlations provided for many types of data. World language classes can study and compare the various nations that speak the language they are studying. If you are lucky enough to have an interactive whiteboard, highlight data and create graphs for comparisons on the board using the board tools and spreadsheet software, as well.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Placing Characters on Trial - Sharon B. Jenkins and Jennifer H. Slinger
Grades
8 to 11tag(s): branches of government (70), civil rights (220), debate (38), literature (214)
In the Classroom
As you plan to teach the novel, set aside the time to do this webquest, or intersperse the steps during the time spent reading. Students will have more of a purpose in their reading. If you do not teach "Of Mice and Men," consider using some of the links from this webquest to make a similar activity for a "trial" of a character from another book. Most of the work has been done here. Simply create a word processing document with your own directions and the links for students to use or put your new webquest in the form of a PowerPoint show with links from there so students can navigate the task.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Free Papercrafts - PaperToys.com
Grades
3 to 10tag(s): architecture (83), paper folding (3)
In the Classroom
The paper folding activities would work well with cooperative learning groups. For example, during a unit on architecture or structures, have each group recreate a different monument or architectural design. Then teach about the various concepts of architecture by using the groups' models. Ask gifted/talented students to analyze how the paper fold-ups work then design a model of your school. Some of the options are purely entertainment oriented. You may want to print the paper patterns yourself instead of sending students to the site.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Radio Days: A Webquest - Tori Kenel
Grades
6 to 10tag(s): 1930s (40), 1940s (70), decades (6), radio (16), writing (307)
In the Classroom
Although this was written for 6-8th graders, it is a lesson easily adaptable to older students. The list of resources is very good, and the kinds of embellishments you can make on the tasks are limitless. It is a great project for students to work on in small groups, allowing students of all abilities an opportunity for success.If you ever considered podcasting, this webquest is the perfect lead-in. Your social studies(or language arts) students will love actually producing their scripts for "broadcast" on the web. Bring the 1930s to life in your classroom!
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Newpapers in Education - Capital Newspapers
Grades
2 to 12tag(s): comics and cartoons (61), fashion (14), news (221), newspapers (86), sports (87)
In the Classroom
All of the lessons described here require online versions of newspapers, but you may be able to find any article in a hard copy newspaper as well. You could also use online newspapers from this resource to find online papers and conduct some of the same lessons. In the course of the discussion, or possible read the article from a different point of view, a topic of basic information literacy in the 21st century.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Bibme - team exibeans
Grades
6 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): citations (34), noregistration (74)
In the Classroom
This is a great tool for students who are both learning to cite correctly and as a helpful tool for those who forget some of the "little" things that count when writing a bibliography. It offers a great example, too, of the difference between what is in a "Works Cited" page and what actually appears in the text as a citation. Teachers can use this on a Smartboard or simply through a computer lab or projector to demonstrate the correct way to cite as well as mistakes to avoid. Be sure to include the link on your teacher web page for students finishing reports in the wee hours of the morning on the due date. Set up a free account for yourself so you can "save" example bibliographies. If you assign independent projects to your gifted students (or any student), be sure to make Bibme part of your instructions so they learn to organize their sources early on. If students are allowed to set up individual accounts, this tool is worth the time! They must be 13 or have parent permission.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Mayflower History - Caleb Johnson
Grades
2 to 12tag(s): genealogy (8), pilgrims (12), primary sources (133), thanksgiving (24)
In the Classroom
Only a visit to a far away museum could get any better than having the full-text primary sources which are available with a click on the left menu. Enhance student learning and bring the Mayflower experience to life with Fakebook, reviewed here. Have students set up fictitious Fakebook page and become one of the voyagers. Perhaps students could adopt a Mayflower 'ancestor' and write how they are alike or unlike by setting up two Fakebook pages. Around Thanksgiving, teachers may want to try some of the original recipes for an authentic Mayflower 'flavor' to their lesson plans.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Bulletin Board Hang Ups - TeachersFirst
Grades
2 to 12tag(s): bulletin boards (13), quotations (18)
In the Classroom
They look great printed on brightly colored paper! As an opening day activity, challenge small groups of students to interpret the quote hanging closest to them and predict how it may be important in your course this year. For younger students, ask them to write a paraphrase or to illustrate the quote. Be sure to change the quotes periodically and give a prize to the first student who notices. Or give a pop-quiz during the last week of school, asking students to recall as many of the year's quotes as they can (working in small groups will probably help). If you have classroom blogs, ask students to choose and reflect on a specific quote and its relevance to your class throughout the past year.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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