Research Guides: Educational Technology: Collections for Social Studies

Collections for Social Studies

Browse general online social studies collections and teacher resources here. Don't forget to check out the geography and interdisciplinary resources below!

Digital History
Organized by eras and topics, this website provides timelines, primary resources, handouts, and more for the classroom.
DMMapp
Links to more than 500 libraries in the world that provide freely accessible digitized illuminated manuscripts.
DocsTeach
Overseen by the National Archives, provides primary documents and classroom activities that can be used to engage students. Provides capability to design your own interactive learning activity.
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Use the homepage to navigate to resources for teachers. The Institute’s mission is to promote the knowledge and understanding of American history through educational programs and resources aimed at K-12 learners.
iCivics
Provides games and other tools for teaching students about civics.
Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media
Provides digital tools and resources for teaching social studies.
Stanford History Education Group
Provides lessons on various historical topics.
Teaching American History
Provides lesson plans, documents, and other resources for teaching social studies. Also provides teacher content support in the form of webinars and seminars aimed at specific topics.
Teaching Tolerance
Provides tools and lesson planning aimed at reducing prejudice, improving intergroup relations and supporting equitable school experiences for all children. Can search lessons by age group and topic.
USA.gov
Includes links to information about the American flag, U.S. data and statistics, information about the branches of government, as well as historical documents and data.
World History Matters
Overseen by the Center for History and New Media, acts as a portal to other websites and online resources for social studies education.
Zinn Education Project
"The Zinn Education Project promotes and supports the teaching of people’s history in middle and high school classrooms across the country. Based on the lens of history highlighted in Howard Zinn’s best-selling book A People’s History of the United States, the website offers free, downloadable lessons and articles organized by theme, time period, and reading level."

Geography Resources

American Civil War Maps
Contains items from the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, the Library of Virginia, and the Virginia Historical Society.
Google Maps
A web mapping service developed by Google. It offers satellite imagery, street maps, 360° panoramic views of streets (Street View), real-time traffic conditions (Google Traffic), and route planning for traveling by foot, car, bicycle (in beta), or public transportation.
Library of Congress Maps
Search over 400,000 maps available through the Library of Congress.
United Nations Geospatial Information Section
More than 100 General Maps are available currently. Maps are in PDF format for best display and print results.

Interdisciplinary Collections and Teaching Resources

Creative Commons
Creative Commons works with the organizations that are leaders in the content and knowledge sharing movement. Over 1.1 billions works have been shared across areas like arts & culture, open access, educational resources and OER, open data, legal, open science, policy & advocacy, and technology.
DPLA: Digital Public Library of America
DPLA partners with libraries and other cultural heritage institutions across the nation to provide free, digital access to materials.
HathiTrust
A large digital repository created as a collaborative effort from Google Books, Internet Archive, and a number of cultural heritage institutions.
Library of Congress
Provides large collection of materials and collections that can be used in the classroom.
National Archives
Provides large collection of materials that can be used in the classroom.
PBS Learning Media
Access thousands of free, innovative, standards-aligned and curriculum-targeted digital resources.
Smithsonian Learning Lab
Discover resources, create collections or tools for assessment, and share your work and ideas with this valuable resource.

Professional, State, and Local Online Resources

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Social Studies in the Classroom: Applications, Stories, and Tips

Teaching Hard History
Spring 2018, Adrienne van der Valk (deputy director for Teaching Tolerance; interviews with 4 educators)
10 Ways to Use Google Maps in the Classroom
9/15/2016, Jessica Sanders
Doing History in Buncombe County: A community gets to know its own stories—past and present—through the study of slave deeds
Spring 2015, Trey Adcock (Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina, Asheville)

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