Social Studies Education
The History Place
History Place functions as an independent resource center for teachers.
It includes everything from personal histories to photographs, all available on-line.
Growing Voters
Growing voters is a hotlist of vetted websites for knowledge about the electoral process. The activities are activity-centered, such as creating a candidate's vote-for-me pamphlet and interviewing candidates.
National Council for the Social Studies
NCSS is the umbrella professional organization for social studies teachers, including all the academic disciplines associated with history and social science. The site has been re-designed to include grant opportunities and conferences and courseware. Resources are listed with connections to the NCSS themes--handy for alignment of content and standards.
Washington State Council for the Social Studies
Washington State Council for the Social Studies provides a number of links to history and social studies units.
Economics Education and Common Core
The Economics Education site spans K-college level. It offers strong support for integrating disciplines within social studies, especially because using a search engine for this topic, like government, would strain your time and resources.
Commanding Heights
Commanding Heights, a PBS series about the future of the world economy, has been webified so that the 150 interview with major world leaders has been segmented for retrieval by theme, country, etc. Students can work at their own pace, also.
Virtual Stock Exchange Game
The Virtual Stock Exchange simulation takes advantage of new technologies and contains excellent content. Both consumer and business perspectives are included. The data is updated as trends actually change on the real stock exchange.
Social studies can be closely allied with science in arenas such as environmental studies education.
U.S. Government Information by Topic
U.S. Government Information demonstrates the transformation of the roles and functions of government offices in the electronic age. These changes are in the future for teachers but the present for students.
History Matters
History Matters , first developed at City University in NYC and George Mason near Washington, contains teaching materials, primary source documents and threaded discussions with leading U.S. history historians. Like this site, it serves as a gateway to pre-screened, quality websites – about 400 now, divided into ten chronological and twenty-two thematic categories.
The quality of this site reflects both the authors' expertise in history and social science education. Guidelines for sifting primary source evidence are provided. Examples of student publications on the Web will give you great ideas. Leading American historians link past and current events and analyze maps and music and much more. A not-to-be-missed site!!
EduConnect
EduConnect resembles History Matters but also includes references to university digitized collections.
Congress for Kids
Congress for Kids is targeted towards younger students, an underrepresented school group on this subject.
The virtual congress is an intriguing concept.Students can enjoy an online exchange with others in a realistic context. What's more a real "product" will emerge.
Best History Sites
BestHistorySites is comprehensive in that it covers all eras of Western civilization, maps, and research links and some ideas about integrating technology. A few non-Western links are included. The annotations are good.
US Courts
US Courts provides an overview of our complex judiciary system. An advantage of this site is that it is up-to-date; it is often hard to find very recent information beyond media headlines.
Particularly in grades K-8, social studies teachers are comfortable with integrated studies. It is hard to imagine separating geography, economics and science in environmental studies.
Given all the responsibilities teachers bear, an integrated unit is efficient, authentic and fun!
Other Areas To Check Out...
• Compilations of Lesson Plans
• Encyclopedia and Reference Sites
• U.S. Government On-line
• Conferences for Educators
• Major Networks for Educators
• Parents and Kids Together
