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CUNY HSE Social Studies Curriculum Framework: Integrating Reading & Writing
The Social Studies: Integrating Reading & Writing Curriculum Framework is a free resource that incorporates social studies content with various reading and writing skills. The curriculum is designed for HSE teachers but lessons and activities could be adapted for other levels. Units 1-3 all include lesson plans and supporting materials and cover the colonial period, the Constitution, and westward expansion. Each provides topical social studies content and then uses it to reinforce reading, writing, and vocabulary skills. For Units 4-12, while there are no lessons or materials, there is a curriculum map with guidelines. Also included is a comprehensive resource guide for HSE social studies. Read More
Smithsonian for Educators
The Smithsonian offers a wealth of free educator resources from their museums and other facilities including the African American Museum, American Indian Museum, American History museum, and many others. Generally, each museum's educator resource section has curriculum guides and a wide range of standards-based, multi-level lessons and activities in both print and digital forms. The site also provides links to many professional development opportunities (online and in-person) to help teachers incorporate museum learning into their instructional planning and delivery. Read More
Minnesota Historical Society History Education
The Minnesota Historical Society's education site offers free classroom-ready resources along with other supplemental curriculum materials on topics of Minnesota and American history. Many of the secondary and elementary ready-to-go classroom activities engage students in primary source analysis, while others focus on students' reading, writing, and research skills. In addition to classroom lessons, the site provides ideas for teaching Native American history and culture, guidance on taking field trips to historic sites and museums around the state of Minnesota, and a regularly updated list of teacher professional development opportunities. Read More
Civics Renewal Network
The Civics Renewal Network is a consortium of nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations that is committed to providing free high-quality learning materials. In their repository, teachers have access to a wide-range of civics and government resources along with others related to history, citizenship, and media literacy. Based on the number of items, teachers can narrow their search by subject, grade level, resource type, standard, or by a specific teaching strategy such as debate, whole class, project-based learning or role play. Read More
Digital Civics Toolkit
The Digital Civics Toolkit is a free collection of resources and activities that encourage learners to recognize the connection between their digital presence life and their civic life. The curriculum is designed for high school level learners but can definitely be adapted for students at other levels. The five modules provide students with the opportunity to identify civics issues that matter to them, analyze civics issues online, navigate diverse perspectives, consider what content they share online, and think about strategies to enact on civics issues. Each module contains a sentence starter, several activities, and a closing reflection. In addition, the site provides a teacher background information section to provide further support through other resources. Read More
PBS Learning Media for Social Studies
PBS Learning Media includes an extensive collection of free, leveled teacher resources for all subject areas. The lessons represent diverse perspectives, are aligned to national and state standards, and are designed to supplement classroom instruction by incorporating video segments and interactive resources. Users can filter by grade level and/or by the many resource types such as lesson plans, interactive lessons, or just video. In addition, many lessons highlight current events and can be shared to Google Classroom or directly shared with students. Read More
National Geographic Education
The National Geographic Education website provides educators with a suite of resources on a diverse range of topics. The resource library includes activities, articles, collections, educator guides, encyclopedic entries, historical articles, ideas, images, interactives, games, lessons, maps, media, photos, unit studies and videos. These resources can be further subdivided into topics and grade level. Read More
PBS LearningMedia for Science
PBS LearningMedia provides a suite of resources on a broad variety of topics; from science to social studies, to health and professional development. As an added bonus, educators can search for materials by both subject and grade level, further specifying which resource is best suited for a classroom. Read More
BEETLES Project
The BEETLEs project is an excellent resource for activities, lessons, and curriculum that explore the natural world. Designed for K-12 and informal science spaces, content focuses on the natural world and how humans understand it. Read More
Carbon-14 Dating & Half-Life
Carbon-14 dating is a popular topic on the science GED. This resource provides a comprehensive lesson plan that explains the concept of half-life to students, with particular emphasis on how to read and interpret a decay curve graph. Read More