Social Studies/Miscellaneous Sites

3Plus-U: Rights at Work
http://www.cyberschoolbus.un.org/3PLUSU/  
A unique digital adventure, 3Plus-U introduces students and teachers to the importance of work and the need for protecting people in the workplace. This Flash-enabled site illustrates through stories, quizzes, challenges and adventures how the world of work affects everyone. Also includes a glossary and a downloadable curriculum guide. Very well done and certain to appeal to students. A product of the International Labour Organization.

Alphabetilately
http://www.arago.si.edu/index.asp?con=4&cmd=2&eid=247
Are you spending more time indoors with the change of seasons? This might be a good time to take up a new hobby. Alphabetilately looks at aspects of stamp collecting and postal history via a browsable a-to-z list of topics - from A is for Advertising Covers to Z is for Zeppelin Post - of interest to collectors. From the Smithsonian National Postal Museum.

American Field Guide
http://www.pbs.org/americanfieldguide/
This is a great site for video guides on Animals, Ecosystems, Human History, Livelihoods, Earth and Space, and Plants. Each of these sections is further divided into categories. There are Teacher Resources and plenty more to make you return to this site.

American Philatelic Society: Just For Kids
http://www.stamps.org/kids/kid_StampFun.htm
October is National Stamp Collecting Month, and the American Philatelic Society's Web site offers a great deal of materials for collectors. The Just for Kids section introduces younger students to the hobby with Beginners Information, New Arrivals, Activity Pages and Fun Facts.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/asianhistory1.html
May was chosen as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month to commemorate the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants to the United States in 1843. This is a comprehensive site with loads of information about topics that range from Asian-American history timelines to the history of chopsticks.

AwesomeStories.com
http://www.awesomestories.com 
Much primary web content is buried and hard to find. AwesomeStories.com takes relevant source material from archives, libraries, museums and institutions and presents it within the context of clear, concise, entertaining stories on a broad range of subjects. Coverage includes Flicks, Famous Trials, History, Biography, Religion, Disasters, LawBuzz. Short chapters and lots of links to external sources will help keep students interested.

Campfire Stories with George Catlin: An Encounter of Two Cultures
http://CatlinClassroom.si.edu
This site presents and interprets hundreds of George Catlin's artworks from the Smithsonian American Art Museum's permanent collection. Campfire Stories uses art, artifacts, and primary source texts to bridge American history, geography, art appreciation, environmental conservation, and multicultural studies. The site and its lesson plans were developed in consultation with a panel of teachers.

Children's Traditional Costumes
http://www.kids-space.org/CTC/
Kid Space has created a fun way to learn about the traditional clothing of other children from around the world. You can tour the site and see examples of the national or ethnic costumes that have been contributed. Visitors can also view examples of traditional clothing from other countries and test their knowledge with the site's interactive game. Suitable for K-8.

Community in History
http://community.rice.edu/ 
This site provides resources for teachers and students, as well as completed examples, for the use of local history and community studies as "the best way for students to gain a holistic sense of the role of history in understanding the world around them." This Project was created by the Center for Technology in Teaching and Learning, Rice University, Houston, Texas and Hogg Middle School with the support of the NEH Schools for a New Millennium Grant Program.

Consumer Jungle
http://www.consumerjungle.org
Consumer Jungle features consumer education curriculum including printable classroom materials and interactive student activities (Credit Cave Activities include Find the Fees and the Credit Card Safari). Units include the Credit Cave, Surviving Solo (tips for living on your own), Esmarts (safe surfing on the web), Car-fari, and Jingle in the Jungle (the mysteries of phone, cell phones, and internet service).

Care2: Eco-Links: Heroes
http://www.care2.com/channels/ecoinfo/eco-heroes
For more than a century, people all over the world have championed environmental causes and become role models for others in their generation and in generations that followed. This inspiring site is devoted to providing short profiles of many of these environmental heroes.

EconoClass
http://www.econoclass.com 
The EconoClass offers great interactive activities for teaching high school economics. Includes games and simulations, case studies, debate topics, and brain teasers.

Field Trips Site
http://www.field-trips.org/
The Field Trips Site is targeted to K-12 education and features a range of field trips on nature topics: Rainforests, Endangered Species, Salt Marshes, Volcanoes, and more. A good resource for classroom use, with teachers objectives and resources are provided for each trip.

Firefighter Protective Clothing Tour
http://www.ci.davis.ca.us/fire/pct/  
Every piece of standard firefighter gear is shown along with videos, sound bytes, and information about how and why the gear is used. You can rotate items, such as the helmet. Small informational windows pop-up and provide further explanations. Short videos are of firefighters responding to calls. Click on "Extras" to see firefighting gear for special fires.

Flag Tag
http://www.cyberschoolbus.un.org/flagtag/frm_ft_start.asp
Do you know lots of flags? Flag Tag is a game where you match the flag to the country. Test your flag knowledge!

Flying Firsts
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1109/features/flying.htm
This is an illustrated timeline of flying firsts, beginning with the hot air balloon (1783) and continuing through to the first completed international space station (2006). Click on an event picture to see more information. From PBS's Scientific American Frontiers.

Humanities-Interactive
http://www.humanities-interactive.org/a_base_UD.html
An engrossing site with beautiful pictures depicting both new and old cultures of our World. Find studies on people dwelling in the lands along America's borders, ancient cultures, medieval world cultures, African art, and more. There is also an exhibit on Texas History, Texas Culture.

Indivisible: Stories of American Community
http://www.indivisible.org/home.htm
This site is "an exploration of community life in America by some of this country's most accomplished photographers, radio producers, and folklorists. Here are the stories of twelve communities where people are coming together to make their small piece of the world a better place to live." A possible use of the site: Have student groups choose several portraits for comparison and then share common points about the change process in American communities.

Learning Page
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/index.html
The Learning Page is a portal for the collections of the American Memory project from The Library of Congress. The collection represents over 7 million resources, which have been used to create lessons and activities. Also present at the site are sections about "Collection Connections," a "Community Center" and professional development. The site also offers "The Source" which is a newsletter about practical techniques for using American Memory resources. Finish your trip to the site by exploring the transcripts of the chats about interesting topics relating to social studies or participating in one.

Lesson Plans for Social Studies
http://www.csun.edu/~hcedu013/index.html
Dr. Martin Levine's Lesson Plans and Resources for Social Studies Teachers site has useful Internet links for social studies teachers. It is the most complete social studies resource I've seen on the Internet. There are also links to social studies services, newsgroups, and curriculum.

Manchester Up Close
http://www.manchesterupclose.co.uk/
This site teaches 14-16 year olds the concepts of urbanization using the city of Manchester to demonstrate concepts. Urban issues are conveyed through tutorials, allowing multiple visitors in a game-like format. A history of urbanization is presented briefly on pages with text that doesn't overwhelm. You can enlarge illustrations for further clarification as needed.

Milking It
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/milkingit/  
Milking It is an online activity designed for UK students that should be of interest to all. Compare the lives of two dairy farmers in very different countries. How are they affected by international trade rules? Who makes these rules, and what can be done to change them? How much do you know about milk, dairy farmers and international trade? Milking It is part of the larger Cool Planet for Teachers web site (http://www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/) which is dedicated to Global Citizenship and contains a wealth of resources, ready-to-use lesson plans, related online materials, a newsletter, professional development resources, and more.

NationalAtlas.gov
http://nationalatlas.gov/
Use this site from the Department of the Interior to help students build knowledge by creating and using digital maps about a variety of topics. NationalAtlas.gov presents the "scientific, societal, and historical information" of the United States. Clicking on the "Atlas Maps" button presents five options for working with digital maps. Of the most interest is the "Interactive Maps" section of the Web site that enables the user to build maps online about a host of topics that include agriculture, invasive species, climate, population and crime, among others. By clicking on the "Identify" button once a map has been drawn, the user can query any specific data point on the map. Using this tool, teachers could build lessons that require the interpretation of visual data.

Nobel Prize Educational Games
http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/
You don't have to be a genius to understand the work of the Nobel Laureates. These games and simulations, based on Nobel Prize-awarded achievements, will teach and inspire you while you're having FUN! Students, teachers and non-professionals of all ages will enjoy testing and building their knowledge in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, peace and economics. So, go ahead, Explore and Learn!

Planet Tolerance: Read, Explore, and Play
http://www.tolerance.org/pt/index.html
The famed Southern Poverty Law Center has created Tolerance.org, a site dedicated to promoting tolerance of diversity.This particular section, Planet Tolerance, is home to a unique collection of games, storybooks, and exercises that explore the rewards of living in a world that respects gender, diverse cultures, languages, heritages and civil rights.

Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City
http://www.refugeecamp.org/
This site, from the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, is immediately engaging due to the large photographs of refugee camps. Students can take a virtual tour of a refugee camp and read personal stories from refugees.

Rudiments of Wisdom Encyclopedia
http://www.rudimentsofwisdom.com/
Includes thousands of cartoons covering almost anything you'd like to know! Originally drawn over a period of 14 years for the Observer newspaper, you'll find information on animals, art, entertainment, music, science, sports, and 16 other subjects.

Social Studies for Kids
http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com  
Offers articles, links, and fun facts, on history, geography, cultures, holidays, economics, and archaeology.

Trading Around the World
http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/center/students/trade/index.htm  
An interactive simulation and role-playing activity based on a fast-paced game that challenges the player to buy low and sell high. The simulation is a trading model that matches the player with computerized traders from around the world. Prices respond to the overall health of the global economy, and players can see how commodity prices change over time.

Working in the 21st Century
http://www.bls.gov/opub/working/home.htm
Working in the 21st Century is a portrait of the U.S. workforce at the beginning of the New Millennium: a set of charts and related information about subjects ranging from education levels to retirement plans. You can view either the slide show or the individual slides. This has great potential for data for math activities, or a great start to a unit on careers.

WorldAtlas.com
http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/world.htm
Click on a continent, then click on a country to find a map of that country. Other information includes Currency Conversion, Current Time, Distances, Equator, Bodies of Water, Flags, and much more.

World Monuments Fund
http://wmf.org/index.html
World monuments — places of exceptional significance — are deteriorating and in danger of disappearing. These enangered places are all across the globe, from hurricane-racked parts of New Orleans to The Blue Mosque in Cairo. The site offers an interactive map providing the background for each endangered place as well as the subsequent efforts to try to save them from destruction. This is an excellent site for both social studies and language arts lessons.

World-Mysteries
http://www.world-mysteries.com/
"Explore lost civilizations, ancient ruins, sacred writings, unexplained artifacts, and science mysteries. Meet subject experts, find related books and resources." Sections include Mystic Places, Strange Artifacts, Ancient Writings, Popular Experts, Science Mysteries, and Related Links.