External Social Studies resources

This page contains curated, best-in-class web resources for instruction in social studies.

The Library of Congress' Primary Source Sets
The LOC has put together a collection of teacher-created materials including lesson plans, document analysis tools, online and offline activities, timelines, presentations, and professional development resources focused on using primary sources in the classroom.

Kids' Zone's Create a Graph
The National Center for Educational Statistics provides an online chart and graph creator with a tutorial for creating a variety of different charts and graphs as well as example sets.

Read Write Think's Student Interactive Timeline
Read Write Think's Timeline is an interactive resource that allows students to create and print their own timeline based on custom information. In addition to this, Read Write Think also provides lesson plans and classroom materials for timeline instruction.

The History Channel's Famous Speeches & Audio
The History Channel has put together a catalog of famous speeches, often accompanied by secondary media (photography and video) that are sorted by time period and/or category.

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists' Cartoons for the Classroom
The AAEC has put together a database of editorial cartoons that is searchable by both date and by subject area. Many of these editorial cartoons are accompanied by secondary materials including lesson plans and printable worksheets.

The History Guide's Resources for Historians
The History Guide is a World Wide Web project designed to assist teachers, students, and anyone else interested in the history of western civilization from its origins to the present. This website includes 90 full-text lectures as well as almost 300 secondary pages that contain biographies, primary sources, and lists of Internet resources.

The College of William and Mary's History Writing Resource Center
A collection of printable handouts and activities that focus on historical writing. This collection includes materials on writing a historical paper, how to construct article reviews, writing about primary sources, reducing wordiness, and documentation.

iCivics
iCivics offers Interactive games and activities about U.S. government as well as a database of lesson plans and civics resources.

Internet History Sourcebooks Project
The Internet History Sourcebooks Project is a collection of historical texts in the public domain presented cleanly for educational use.

The Museum of the Moving Image's Living Room Candidate
The Living Room Candidate contains more than 300 commercials, from every presidential election since 1952, when Madison Avenue advertising executive Rosser Reeves convinced Dwight Eisenhower that short ads played during popular TV programs would reach more voters than any other form of advertising. This innovation had a permanent effect on the way presidential campaigns are run.

Civicate Civics Videos
Civicate was designed by a student to make sure all students have a good understanding of our government, so they can better engage as citizens. The short videos are designed to be viewed easily on any device.