Resources for Educators

+   Grades K-2

Kindergarten   Many Roles in Living, Learning, and Working Together

  • Emerging America - History's Mysteries - Historical Inquiry for Elementary Classrooms - Kindergarten unit includes What is the difference between then and now? Where do people work? How is work different now than in the past?

Grade 1            Leadership, Cooperation, Unity, and Diversity

  • Discovering Justice - Virtual Mock Trial Units In these virtual mock trial units for grades 1-5, students learn about the Judicial System and strengthen skills from across content areas (close reading, evidence based argumentation, speaking and listening etc.), and apply them as they engage in a mock trial.

  • Emerging America - History's Mysteries - Historical Inquiry for Elementary Classrooms - First grade units include What does it mean to belong to a group? What is a citizen? How do groups make decisions? What makes a good leader? What made people think George Washington would be a good president? Do good leaders always do good things?

Grade 2            Global Geography: Places and Peoples, Cultures and Resources

Topic: Community

Topic: Civic Engagement and Government

  • Kid Citizen - Students explore Congress and civic engagement through interactive activities that make use of primary sources and connect what they find with their daily lives

Topic: Geography

Multiple Topics/Instructional Strategies

  • Discovering Justice - K-5 literacy based curriculum. Teachers may adapt lessons for online learning by supplementing trade books with video recordings of read alouds. See here here for grade 1 remote topics. See here for grade 2 remote topics.

  • Discovering Justice - Virtual Mock Trial Units - In these virtual mock trial units for grades 1-5, students learn about the Judicial System and strengthen skills from across content areas (close reading, evidence based argumentation, speaking and listening etc.), and apply them as they engage in a mock trial.

+   Grades 3-5

Grade 3   Massachusetts, Home to Many Different People 

Grade 4   North American Geography and Peoples

Grade 5   United States History to the Civil War and the Modern Civil Rights Movement

Topic: American Revolution

  • Liberty's Kids -Youtube video series created by student reporters covering the events of the Revolutionary War

Topic: Local Government / Civic Participation

Topic: Immigration and Citizenship

  • iCivics game Immigration Nation and Extension Pack lessons, on immigration and citizenship; includes Spanish version and supports for English Language Learners

Topic: Civic Action / Civics Projects

  • iCivics game Activate and Extension Pack lessons, on civic action in the local community

  • iCivics WebQuest Who Represents Me?, investigate who represents you at the local, state and federal level; students conduct their own research using the questions, pre-vetted websites and guiding tools provided.

Topic: The Bill of Rights / Amendments to the Constitution

Topic: Geography

Topic: News and Media Literacy

  • Newsomatic - free daily newspaper for kids, translated into Spanish and French, includes voiceover as well as writing and drawing activities

  • Newsela -provides current and differentiated content in multiple subject areas. Currently offering free access to all of their resources to individual teachers. 

Topic: Slavery, the Legacy of the Civil War, and the Struggle for Civil Rights for All

Multiple Topics

+   Grades 6-7

Grade 6   World Geography and Ancient Civilizations I

Grade 7   World Geography and Ancient Civilization II

Topic: World History

  • PBS Learning Media - a range of grades, videos and interactive lessons on topics in world and U.S. history

Topic: Current Global Issues

Topic: International Relations 

Topic: Migration

Topic: News and Media Literacy

  • News Literacy Project, provides tools to address misinformation about the current health crisis as well as free access to Checkology, an online platform to help students develop media literacy skills 

  • iCivics game - NewsFeed Defenders and Extension Pack lessons; take on the role of curating a social media site to learn media literacy 

  • Newsela provides current and differentiated content in multiple subject areas. Currently offering free access to all of their resources to individual teachers.

  • CNN 10 (formerly CNN Student News) - news of the day in 10 minutes

+   Grades 8

 Grade 8   United States and Massachusetts Government and Civic Life

 Topic: History of the Constitution

Topic: Federalism

Topic: Bill of Rights / Amendments to the Constitution

  • iCivics game Do I Have a Right? and Extension Pack lessons, on the Bill of Rights and other amendments; includes Spanish version and supports for English Language Learners

  • Reimagining Migration - Wong Kim Ark a Chinese American, who was detained after returning to the US from a trip to China, used the 14th amendment to win the right of birthright citizenship.

Topic: Elections

  • iCivics game Win the White House and Extension Pack lessons; run your own presidential campaign; includes Spanish version and supports for English Language Learners

  • iCivics game Cast Your Vote, and Extension Pack lessons, on local elections; includes Spanish version and supports for English Language Learners

  • Generation Citizen -  Election Resources This curated set of election-related lesson plans and resources helps educators and caregivers learn and teach about the history of our democracy, voting rights, election fundamentals, political representation, voter registration, poll workers, and debates.

  • Democratic Knowledge Project  Election 2020 Provides lessons and other resources to teach concepts about elections beyond 2020.

Topic: Branches of Government / Checks and Balances

  • iCivics game Branches of Power and Extension Pack lessons, to learn about all three branches of government; includes Spanish version and supports for English Language Learners

  • iCivics game Executive Command and Extension Pack lessons; take on the role of President

  • iCivics WebQuest Three Branches: Laws in Action, follow a law from start to finish; students conduct their own research using the questions, pre-vetted websites and guiding tools provided.

  • iCivics WebQuest Three Branches: Checks and Balances; students conduct their own research using the questions, pre-vetted websites and guiding tools provided.

  • iCivics WebQuest Being President, the role and responsibilities of the President; students conduct their own research using the questions, pre-vetted websites and guiding tools provided.

Topic: Global Citizenship 

Topic: News and Media Literacy

  • News Literacy Project - provides tools to address misinformation about the current health crisis as well as free access to Checkology, an online platform to help students develop media literacy skills

  • iCivics game NewsFeed Defenders and Extension Pack lessons and other resources; take on the role of curating a social media site to learn media literacy

Topic: Current Events

Topic: Massachusetts State and Local Government / Civic Participation

Topic: Civics Projects / Action Civics

Multiple Topics/Instructional Strategies

  • Education Development Center’s Zoom In! -a research-based online tool, offers 18 free US History units that build students’ literacy skills by helping them develop arguments on important social questions. Students delve into compelling human conflicts throughout history, and argue with evidence about what the past means and why it matters.

+   High School

 United States History I and II, the Colonial Period to the Present, Electives

 Topic: Origins of the American Revolution and the Constitution

 Topic: History of the Constitution and the Early Republic

Topic: Social, Political, and Religious Change

Topic: The Bill of Rights / Amendments to the Constitution

  • iCivics game Do I Have a Right? and Extension Pack lessons, on the Bill of Rights and other amendments; includes Spanish version and supports for English Language Learners

Topic: Elections

  • iCivics game Win the White House and Extension Pack lessons; run your own presidential campaign; includes Spanish version and supports for English Language Learners

  • iCivics game Cast Your Vote, and Extension Pack lessons, on local elections; includes Spanish version and supports for English Language Learners

  • League of Women Voters of Massachusetts - Teen Voting Rights Challenge student video contest, open to all Massachusetts high school students: Create a 30-second video giving your opinion on the question “ Should 16-year-olds have the right to vote?”

  • #HistoriansGuideto2020 - Collection of resources on the 2020 national election. Curated by the Washington Post, includes student-view.

Topic: Branches of Government / Checks and Balances

  • iCivics game Branches of Power and Extension Pack lessons, to learn about all three branches of government; includes Spanish version and supports for English Language Learners

  • iCivics game Executive Command and Extension Pack lessons; take on the role of President

  • iCivics WebQuest Three Branches: Laws in Action, follow a law from start to finish; students conduct their own research using the questions, pre-vetted websites and guiding tools provided

  • iCivics WebQuest Three Branches: Checks and Balances; students conduct their own research using the questions, pre-vetted websites and guiding tools provided.

  • iCivics WebQuest Being President, the role and responsibilities of the President; students conduct their own research using the questions, pre-vetted websites and guiding tools provided

Topic: Local Government / Civic Participation

  • iCivics game Cast Your Vote and Extension Pack lessons, on local elections; includes Spanish version and supports for English Language Learners

  • iCivics game Responsibility Launcher and Extension Pack lessons, on civic duties and responsibilities

  • iCivics WebQuest Civic Heroism, on civic duties and acts of civic courage; students conduct their own research using questions, pre-vetted websites and guiding tools provided

  • iCivics WebQuest Who Represents Me?, investigate who represents you at the local, state and federal level; students conduct their own research using the questions, pre-vetted websites and guiding tools provided.

Topic: Global Citizenship 

Topic: The Civil War and Reconstruction: Causes and Consequences

Topic: Reconstruction

Topic: Race and Membership

Topic: Civil Rights Movement

Topic: Immigration / Migration

Topic: News and Media Literacy

Topic: Current Events

Topic: Common Good

Topic: AP Courses

Topic: Civics Projects / Action Civics

  • Facing History and Ourselves - From Reflection to Action: A Choosing to Participate Toolkit, with readings and activities designed to support student-led civic action projects at middle and high school levels

  • Generation Citizen - Democracy Doesn’t Pause, lesson plans and family activities to create change in the community

  • Generation Citizen - Take Action: Lobby a Legislator: If you're leading a virtual classroom, we have developed a lesson you can teach to connect this moment to civic action. As your students engage in their reflections about everything happening around them through this lesson, please encourage them to post their thoughts and experiences using the hashtags in the plan, and be sure to @generationcitizen on Instagram and @gencitizen on Twitter, in order to connect with other young people sharing their voice across the country.

  • Generation Citizen - Family Activity: If you're providing families with materials for distance learning, we have developed an activity that students and their families can engage with. Encourage families and students to post their experience and reflections on Instagram and Twitter!

  • Generation Citizen - Beyond the Ballot: Provides strategies for teachers and parents to take civic action in the community. A 2-lesson curriculum draws students’ attention to their local governments, systems and services, students gain appreciation for the potential power of their actions at the local level. Students will work together to choose an issue in their community, and then seek out a local elected official to address it.

  • Generation Citizen - Government Guide lesson: Students work to create a government guide with relevant information for their state, county, and municipal government.

  • CIRCLE Data Tool offers a unique way to explore the relationships between voting and other forms of civic participation, and some of the conditions that shape such engagement. It features more than 40 unique indicators and includes data at the national, state, congressional district, and county levels. The classroom companion illustrates examples for teachers from many disciplines to use the data in inquiries and other projects.

  • Education Development Center Law & Justice Program includes innovative curriculum and research-based professional development, designed to empower students to think critically, develop solutions, and take civic action. Many of the curriculum activities can be adapted for distance learning. Students can explore COVID-19 legislation using the project and activities in Foundations in Law, Unit 2: The Legal System in Action. And Foundations in Criminal Justice, Unit 1: There Ought to Be a Law! provides a great opportunity for students to consider community, state, and federal actions such as quarantines, lockdowns, and restaurant closures in the context of community safety.

  • Constitutional Rights Foundation - Civic Action Projects Student Discussions. Students can discuss issues with other student leaders from across the U.S. 

Topic: American Identity/Art History

Topic: Science Literacy

  • National Science Foundation Infectious Diseases: provides engaging and scientifically accurate instructional materials aimed at deepening high school students’ understanding of infectious diseases, enhancing their skills in seeking additional information to make informed decisions, and influencing their behaviors in response to an epidemic. Following an overarching storyline of the Ebola epidemic and measles outbreak, as well as emerging material on COVID-19, the resources are organized into four modules that can be used in sequence or individually. 

Multiple Topics

+   Resources to address a range of ages, grade levels, and topics

+   Valuable Reference Resources

Historical Documents, Museum Collections and Other Sources

Library of Congress 

  • Online Exhibitions - hundreds of rich, well-researched, primary source-based sites (K-12, school and family)

Upworthy

  • Voice Recordings of former enslaved Americans - ABC News Nightline / Ted Koppel Accounts of former enslaved Americans in their own words recorded in the 1930s and 1940s. Ted Koppel narrates this segment from 1999. (Note: use of word “slave” as opposed to “enslaved person.”)

National Park Service

 John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum 

Emerging America 

  • Radical Equality: Utopian Abolitionism, Steamboat Barnet, and Forge of Innovation: The Springfield Armory and the Genesis of American Industry - Interactive online exhibits. Grades 3-5 and 6-12. School or family. 

The Boston Athenæum 

  • Digital collections of visual and textual primary sources, including materials related to the study of government and civic engagement, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries, such as:

  • The Events Archive (book talks, lectures, panel discussions) includes recorded programs (video and podcast formats) with scholars, authors, and artists on topics across the humanities and arts.

Digital Public Library of America 

  • Primary Source Sets - DPLA’s free primary source sets explore topics in history, literature, and culture developed by educators and include teaching guides for class use.

  • DPLA Search: Search to access more than 36 million images, texts, videos, and sounds from DPLA’s 4,000+ partner institutions across the country. The collection is useful for primary source research and analysis and research projects on almost any topic, as well as creating things like scavenger hunts and games for putting a little fun in e-learning.

 Massachusetts Historical Society

  • Boston Tea Party - print materials, including broadsides and poems.

  • Phillis Wheatley - poetry of the first published African American writer in America

  • Coming of the American Revolution - primary sources and contextual essays arranged into 15 topics relating to the events leading up to the American Revolution.

  • Perspectives on the Boston Massacre - letters, pamphlets, diary entries, legal notes, and engravings relating to the Boston Massacre.

  • Fire! Voices from the Boston Massacre - view video of re-enactors portraying eye witnesses to the events of March 5, 1775.

  • John Adams and Abigail Adams Correspondence - John and Abigail Adams exchanged over 1,100 letters, beginning during their courtship in 1762 and continuing throughout John's political career (until 1801).

  • 54th Regiment - visual materials from the MHS relating to the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the first military unit consisting of black soldiers to be raised in the North during the Civil War.

  • African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts -historical manuscripts and rare published works that serve as a window upon the lives of African Americans in Massachusetts from the late seventeenth century through the abolition of slavery under the Massachusetts Constitution in the 1780s.

  • The Case for Ending Slavery - primary sources that reveal how slavery, and debates about slavery, contributed to the formation of the United States, including letters, diaries, broadsides, artifacts, songs, legal notebooks, and photographs representing a variety of viewpoints.

  • Images of the Anti-Slavery Movement in Massachusetts - digital images of 840 visual materials that illustrate the role of Massachusetts in the national debate over slavery, including photographs, paintings, sculptures, engravings, artifacts, banners, and broadsides that were central to the debate and the formation of the antislavery movement.

  • Massachusetts in the Civil War (1861-1862) - letters, photographs, and broadsides that provide examples of the great cost to families from Massachusetts in the first two years of the Civil War, 1861-1862.

  • Women’s Suffrage and Anti-Suffrage - learn about pro-suffrage and anti-suffrage activities and activists from Massachusetts.

MCN Guide to Virtual Museum Resources 

World Digital Library

National Archives

Ellis Island

Lower East Side Tenement Museum 

Perkins School for the Blind 

New York Historical Society Online

Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC.

The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI)

U.S. Census Bureau

The Nature Conservancy

  • Nature Lab - Interactive lesson plans for teachers, students and families to explore nature around the globe alongside Conservancy scientists

New York Times: The Learning Network

  • The Learning Network - publishes about 1,000 teaching resources each school year, all based on using New York Times content — articles, essays, images, videos, graphics and podcasts — as teaching tools across subject areas. Most of the resources are free (only lesson plans are limited to five per month for non-subscribers). Intended audience is middle and high school teachers and students. 

CNN

  • CNN 10 (formerly CNN Student News) - news of the day in 10 minutes

CIRCLE

  • CIRCLE Data Tool offers a unique way to explore the relationships between voting and other forms of civic participation, and some of the conditions that shape such engagement. It features more than 40 unique indicators and includes data at the national, state, congressional district, and county levels. The classroom companion illustrates examples for teachers from many disciplines to use the data in inquiries and other projects.