U.S. Government On-line

USA.gov Web Portal

USA.gov is the federal government's online guide to government information and services. Pick the topic and you can get information on it here.

Data.gov

Data.gov is the home of the U.S. Government's open data. Here you and your students will find the data, tools, and resources to conduct research, design data visualizations, maybe develop a web and mobile application, and more.

Federal Election Commission

The Federal Election Commission not only provides help for political candidates and committees, but tracks campaign contributions and expenditures and publishes that information here. Historical data is available, along with information on current campaigns.

Can be a great source of real-world math lessons in election years.

National Centers for Environmental Information

NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) hosts and provides public access to one of the most significant archives for environmental data on Earth. Through the Center for Weather and Climate and the Center for Coasts, Oceans, and Geophysics, they provide over 25 petabytes of comprehensive atmospheric, coastal, oceanic, and geophysical data.

You'll find anything from real time satellite images to Paleoclimatology and ocean data sets.

Congressional Budget Office

Since 1975, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has produced independent analyses of budgetary and economic issues to support the Congressional budget process. Each year, this nonpartisan agency produces dozens of reports and hundreds of cost estimates for proposed legislation.

The CBO data is available for download. Each report and cost estimate includes a summary of the methodology underlying the analysis.

Talk about "real world" data...

History & Social Studies Lesson Plans

The National Endowment for the Humanities has assembled 426 different lesson plans covering everything from A Raisin in the Sun and Common Sense to Angkor Wat and What Was Columbus Thinking? to Women's Equality: Changing Attitudes and Beliefs.

Lesson plans can be selected by grade level, number of class periods to complete, topic and the inclusion of worksheets.

The Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology

The Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology (FCSM) indexes a wide variety of data sources and announces the availability of new data sets.

Check out their Data Releases, Data Services and Other Resources sections.

Thru this site and Data.gov, you can find data on such topics as economic and population trends, crime, education, health care, aviation safety, energy use, farm production and more.

Ballotpedia

Ballotpedia is a non-partisan, online encyclopedia of American politics. They provide objective information about politics, influencers, and present & past elections. The cover not only national politics, but state and many local jurisdictions as well.

Polling Report

For raw data and learning about polling questions and procedures, check out Polling Report.

World's Smallest Politcal Quiz

The World's Smallest Political Quiz (10 questions) lets students deduce their inclinations and, more importantly, let them start to understand what the labels - Liberal, Conservative, Libertarian, Statist and Centrist - might really mean.