Social Studies
General Resources
David Rumsey Historical Maps Collection
The historical map collections has over 46,000 maps and images online. The collection focuses on rare 18th and 19th Century North America and South America maps and other cartographic materials.
Google Earth Browser with maps superimposed over
U.S. News Map is a great resource produced by Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia. The U.S. New Map is an archive of American newspapers printed between 1836 and 1925. You can search the archive by entering a keyword or phrase. The results of your search will be displayed on an interactive map. Click on any of the markers on the map and you'll be shown a list of newspaper articles related to your search term. Click on a listed article to read it on the Library of Congress' Chronicling America website.
Docs Teach from the National Archives Experience
Thousands of primary sources selected from the National Archives
The Price of Freedom: Americans at War
An online exhibition from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. This exhibition examines how wars have shaped the nation’s history and transformed American society. It highlights the service and sacrifice of generations of American men and women. The exhibit includes videos, pictures, art works, primary sources, artifacts, and much more.
Mission US, An Interactive Way to Learn History
Mission US is a multimedia project that immerses players in U.S. history content through free interactive games.
Mr. Betts Class YouTube Channel
Music videos for US and World History that are completely goofy, but with great content and students LOVE them!
Disney The American Presidents
Videos for George Washington, John Adams, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon. Each run a little over 3 minutes long and your students will much rather watch these than that *cough* other president video you were going to show.
TimelinesTV YouTube channel - Good, Short History Lessons
TimelinesTV was originally built as a site that featured video lessons displayed on a timeline. Today, the timelines don't function well (the site hasn't been updated in a few years), but the videos are still available through the TimelinesTV YouTube channel.
Colonization
Reading a Map from National Park Service
Great tutorial on reading maps, including topographical
Interesting tool for teaching and learning history. As a teacher, you can use this tool to create animated multimedia historical scenarios of people and things moving through a historical space and time. Students can use it in their history projects to create animated events using different multimedia materials.
Rare Map Collection of Colonial America from Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Centuries of Citizenship Interactive Timeline
An online experience highlighting some of the key dates and events that mark more than 200 years of our constitutional history. These timeline entries, taken as a whole, tell the evolving story of the U.S. Constitution and the continuing role that it plays in our lives. Visitors can browse through a collection of stories and headlines -- annotated by images, audio and video clips and interactive content -- to explore some of the people, events and issues that have shaped the Constitution and the history of our nation.
Colonists from Annenburg
Liberty Perspectives: Daily Life in the Colonies
How much did a horse cost in colonial times? This interactive site uses a picture of a colonial farm to inform you about daily life in the colonies.
Jamestown, Videos and Podcasts
The Jamestown Online Adventure from History Globe
You are the Captain of the Jamestown Colony: Can you do any better than the real colonists? You will have a copy of the London Company's Instructions to help guide you.
Kids Zone from Colonial Williamsburg
This is geared more towards elementary, but has some good information in cartoon form with links to slideshows about life in Colonial times. Other features include Tour the Town, Games, and Meet the People.
Colonial Williamsburg, Life in the 18th Century
Information, Slideshows, Audio files on all aspects of life in Colonial Williamsburg
Experience the Life from Colonial Williamsburg
Interactive Activities to learn all about Colonial Life through quizzes, panoramic views of the houses and land, learn about the different regions of the new world, dress up the colonists, video diaries, simulations, and challenges.
NYPL Digital Gallery provides free and open access to over 640,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more.
Famous Moments in Early American History, Short Films of Noteworthy Events
Each film in the 'Famous Moments' series highlights a true story of historical significance, providing 'students' of early America with a better understanding of the people, places and events of this important era. Of added interest for viewers, each film tells its story using scenes and portraits from theEarly American Digital Library. Many of the images are primary source documents — engravings, woodcuts and drawings that date back to the early to mid-1800s.
American Revolution
Our America from Scholastic, Revolutionary War
Road to the Revolution Game from PBS
Causes of the American Revolution by BrainPop
Movie, Quizzes , Activity Sheets with questions, graphic organizer, and vocabulary.
Mission US, For Crown or Colony
It's 1770. You are Nat Wheeler, a 14 year old apprentice in Boston. When fighting starts, what will you do?
Thirteen Colonies from BrainPop. Get your login from your campus contact.
A unique array of primary source material from the 18th Century America. Scenes and portraits from original newspapers, magazines, maps and writings come to life just as they appeared to this country's forebears more than 250 years ago.
ContextU: Understand Your World, The American Revolution
Context transforms information into knowledge! Context brings meaning to what you learn and helps you understand and remember events, locations, people and concepts. ContextU offers a quick and fun way to examine the context of a particular subject through only four relations: time, location, cause and effect, and group. This is an American Civil War-limited beta release of the ContextU application.
What are They Saying from Kids Valley Forge
Government
Exploring Monticello, An Inside Look at Washington DC, Exploring Mount Vernon, Our Nation's Capitol, Congressional Record, Presidential & the Constitution
Here is another site with a nice collection of Constitution based games. The Bill of Rights, the Constitutional Convention and the 1st Amendment are all topics of some of the games you can find here.
iCivics is a non-profit organization dedicated to reinvigorating civic learning through interactive and engaging learning resources. Our educational resources empower teachers and prepare the next generation of students to become knowledgeable and engaged citizens.
21 YouTube Videos that Help Make Learning the Constitution Fun
Military Perspectives from PBS
Quizlet, Online Flashcards of 7 Principles of Government
Test your knowledge of the Constitution. Can be done with clickers in verbal mode.
Constitutional Principles Videos from the Bill of Rights Institute
Constitutional Rights Origins and Travels
This website allows users to compare rights in the Constitution to corresponding rights in countries around the world.
Bill of Rights from BrainPop. Get your login from your campus contact. Check out the activities and quiz. Practice quiz can be done in clickers verbal mode.
Texas Law Focused Education Games
Many of the games here are based around the U.S. Constitution. There are games based on the Preamble, the three branches, and the Bill of Rights. There are law based games and even one about the Declaration of Independence.
Westward Expansion
This interactive site goes along with the national Emmy Award-winning documentary series from PBS. It explores the events surrounding the conflict between two neighboring nations struggling for land, power and identity. It includes a section Prelude to War, biographies, timeline, map, video clips, and teacher resources.
From Slavery to Civil Rights, A Timeline
Investigate a timeline from the Library of Congress of African American history, with photos, broadsides, maps and other items organized around time periods: slavery, abolition, antebellum, Civil War, reconstruction, progressive era, World War I, between the wars, World War II and civil rights.
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
Mission US, A Cheyenne Odyssey
It's 1186. You are Little Fox, a Northern Cheyenne boy. Can you help your tribe survive life on the Plains?
Map Migration from Ancestry.com
What do you do with 770,000 tubes of saliva collected from AncestryDNA customers? Ancestry scientists have an unusual answer: Create a ground-breaking map of America’s history-based diversity using the genetic data from the analysis of the samples. This unique map shows this country’s great migrations, the echoes of our pioneer ancestors in our genes today.
Civil War
Civil War Movie from BrainPop
Comes also with quiz. You could use clickers in verbal mode or Insight 360 on the fly questions.
Civil War 1861-1865, Photos from the Frontline
ContextU: Understand Your World, The Civil War
Context transforms information into knowledge! Context brings meaning to what you learn and helps you understand and remember events, locations, people and concepts. ContextU offers a quick and fun way to examine the context of a particular subject through only four relations: time, location, cause and effect, and group. This is an American Civil War-limited beta release of the ContextU application.
Who Am I, A History Mystery from the Smithsonian
Students select a mystery character from the Civil War. Then find the artifacts that hold the key to their identity.
Commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War & the Missouri-Kansas border region's unique place in the bloody four-year conflict.
US Civil War from Google Maps Gallery
This comprehensive map shows major land campaigns, Union and Confederate troop movements, major Union naval campaigns, roads, railroads, battle outcomes and their impacts on the war, dates of capture by Union forces and more. Two inset maps – Battle for the Capitals and Turning Points of the War – a timeline of battles with map location, casualties and impacts of battles are included.
Symbols of Battle: Civil War Flags from Google Cultural Institute
The Gettysburg Address from the Smithsonian
Use this interactive document to bring one of the five known handwritten copies of the Gettysburg Address to life! Students can zoom in on the document, click on highlighted passages that help put the famous speech into context and listen to actor Liam Neeson read the entire address. Transcripts of the manuscript are also available in English and Spanish to help students understand one the most famous speeches in American History.
Gettysburg National Military Park from Google Cultural Institute
Artifacts and more
It's 1848. You are Lucy King, a 14 year old slave in Kentucky. Will you find your path to freedom?
Underground Railroad, Interactive from National Geographic
Reconstruction
Quiz on Civil War: Reconstruction Era
Mexican American War from The Price of Freedom: Americans at War
An online exhibition from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The exhibit includes videos, pictures, art works, primary sources, artifacts, and much more.