Social Studies Resources

Recommended by Paul Bangiola

• The National Council for the Social Studies website is a comprehensive guide to social studies programs and awards, with lessons available for teachers from kindergarten through college. 

• PBS Learning Media has a search engine for multimedia collections of social studies lessons in video, image, and interactive links, easy to sort by specific subject area. 

• National Geographic Education is an engaging assortment of maps, videos, current events, games, and teaching resources for K-12 geography students and teachers. 

• Teachinghistory.org has teaching materials, lessons, and quizzes for elementary through high school social studies, as well as an interactive digital classroom.

• The Library of Congress Teacher website provides classroom plans, activities, primary source guides and professional development resources for teachers K-12. 

Recommended by Rebecca Nyquist

• The Natural History Museum website provides a number of web quests for students to engage in.

• PBS: Reporting America at War has a host of information related to American wars: lessons, readings, pictures, films, and other resources for teachers, incorporating many sources. 

• New York Times: The Learning Network provides lessons and activities for students and teachers, useful for gathering newspaper articles related to primary sources.

• The National Endowment for the Humanities provides lesson plans on Teachingamericanhistory.org including primary and secondary sources with an audio library.

• The University of Maryland: Baltimore County Center for History Education provides easy-to-navigate lesson plans organized in chronological order. 

• History Matters: Students as Historians is a guide of social studies projects done by high school students, useful for students to browse. 

• An interactive slideshow presentation on the basics of Confucianism.

Recommended by Cindy Assini

• Mission US is a multimedia project that immerses players in U.S. history content through free interactive games.

• Grade level reading ranges are identified by Lexile measures.  Descriptive information is appropriate for norm-referenced interpretations only.

• K-12 literacy and history lessons and questions sets (assessments) with Lexile reading levels appropriate for high school.

Recommended by Medha Kirtane, Ridgewood High School, NJ - Princeton University Distinguished Secondary School Teacher award honoree

• The Council for Foreign Relations for its teaching modules.

• The National Endowment for the Humanities for its lesson plans.

• Edsitement! is the National Edowment of the Humanities newsletter.

• The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History for Primary Sources and History by Era: collections and history by era.

• The Oral History Association for the process of oral history.

• The Week for current events and political magazines.

• Ridgewood High School website for its curriculum documents for sequencing or ideas. (follow these links for curriculum documents; District Admin, Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment, Department Files à Curriculum (K12, all subjects)

• Newsela: “Translates” current events into grade appropriate vocabulary and text.