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History and Civics Resources for your Blended/Online Classes

There are many great free resources for 7th-12th grade history and civics educators to use digitally. We have compiled a list of our favorites below. Let us know if we missed any on Twitter or Facebook!

Bill of Rights Institute

Firstly, of course, are BRI’s resources. You can find a link to them all here. They include

The below sites offer free lesson plans and primary source content.

Annenberg Learner

“Annenberg Learner funds and distributes educational video programs – with coordinated online and print materials – for the professional development of K-12 teachers.”

Purdue Global Law School

“Civic Responsibility Guide: Resources to Promote Civic Engagement”

Digital Public Libraries of America

Primary Source Sets: “Primary source collections exploring topics in history, literature, and culture developed by educators – complete with teaching guides for class use.”

Engaging Congress

“Engaging Congress is a free, fun, interactive game that uses primary source documents to explore the basic tenets of representative government and the challenges they face in contemporary society.”

Free to Choose Network

“A More or Less Perfect Union, explores the most contentious issues in American history and today through the lens of the U.S. Constitution. The groundbreaking, three-part public television series tells the story of how the Framers put freedom in writing; how amendment after amendment finally spread freedom to all of “we the people”; and how we still struggle today to preserve the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution.”

Fordham University Primary Sourcebooks

“The Internet History Sourcebooks Project, a collection of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts presented cleanly (without advertising or excessive layout) for educational use.”

Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History-History Now

History Now-“New content is added regularly to the website, including online exhibitions, videos, lesson plans, and issues of the online journal History Now, which features essays by leading scholars on major topics in American history.”

iCivics

“iCivics exists to engage students in meaningful civic learning. We provide teachers well-written, inventive, and free resources that enhance their practice and inspire their classrooms.”

Library of Congress-Teaching with Primary Sources

Teaching with Primary Sources: “The Library of Congress offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library’s vast digital collections in their teaching.”

National Archives-DocsTeach

DocsTeach: For Teachers, Students, and History Explorers “Access thousands of primary sources – letters, photographs, speeches, posters, maps, videos, and other document types – spanning the course of American history.”

National Constitution Center-Educational Resources

Educational Resources-“Explore the museum’s innovative, engaging lesson plans, activities, and other materials.”

National Endowment for the Humanities-EdSitement

“EDSITEment is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Trust for the Humanities. EDSITEment offers free resources for teachers, students, and parents searching for high-quality K-12 humanities education materials in the subject areas of history and social studies, literature and language arts, foreign languages, arts, and culture.”

Newseum Education

“NewseumED.org offers free resources to cultivate the First Amendment and media literacy skills essential to civic life.”

Oyez

“Oyez (pronounced OH-yay)-a free law project from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (LII), Justia, and Chicago-Kent College of Law-is a multimedia archive devoted to making the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone.”

Smithsonian Learning Lab

“The Smithsonian Learning Lab puts the treasures of the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex within reach. The Lab is a free, interactive platform for discovering millions of authentic digital resources, creating content with online tools, and sharing in the Smithsonian’s expansive community of knowledge and learning.”

TeachingAmericanHistory.org

“TeachingAmericanHistory.org is a project of the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University…To this end, TAH.org sponsors a variety of resources, courses, and programs to help classroom teachers improve their knowledge of American history, government, civics, and ideas through the use of primary documents.”

Unum-by Ken Burns

“UNUM is a new way to explore American history through scenes selected from across our over 40 films.” “Each of Ken Burns’s films looks at more than just its individual subject matter; it drives audiences to go deeper into themes that are central to who we are as a nation and as individuals. Likewise, the educational materials explore these themes, while also addressing key curriculum subjects, such as Social Studies, U.S. and World History, civics and government, and geography.”

UVA-Miller Center

The Presidency-Educational Resources: “Inspiring America’s leaders with nonpartisan insights, especially on the presidency, that advance democratic institutions and the public good”