12 Free History and Social Studies Resources

From time to time I run guest posts. This post comes from Donna Scott who writes for Best Colleges Online. I learned about a couple of new-to-me sites from Donna's list and I hope that you find some new resources as well.

The internet doesn’t have to be a scary place for teachers to use in the classroom. There numerous sites out there that offer kids a chance to learn in a much more interactive and in-depth fashion about the world around them, both past and present. Here are some great online resources that can help bring history and social studies alive for your students.

1. Clickable Mummy: Kids are very often interested in mummies and using this interactive site they can learn about the process of mummification.
2. 50 States: Learning geography can be a little more interactive with this site that lists tons of facts about each of the states.
3. Maps.com: Not only can you find regular old maps here to use in class, students can also engage with map games to make learning a little more fun.
4. CIA World Factbook: From maps to flags, this site will help kids learn about every country in the world.
5. EyeWitness to History: Get a more personal perspective on history through this site that engages kids with first-hand accounts of historical events, photos, audio and more.
6. Countries of the World: Use this site to find out information about countries around the world from studies done by the U.S. government.
7. Visible Earth: Take advantage of these NASA images to show kids what the world looks like from an elevated perspective. They’ll be able to see a wide range of geographic features.
8. Today in History: Put in any day in the year and find out what major events happened on it through this helpful tool.
9. The History Beat: Need a timeline? This site is chock full of them.
10. LOC American Memory: This site is loaded with photos, primary documents, audio clips and in-depth information that can be a valuable tool to helping students understand American history.
11. History Games and Animations: Check out this list of resources to find tools that will help you teach your students about everything historical from ancient times to the present day.
12. The Biography Maker: Elementary age children will appreciate this site that helps them to understand just what a biography is and get a little help on jazzing up boring facts into something fun and exciting to read.

This post was contributed by Donna Scott, who writes about the online colleges. She welcomes your feedback at DonnaScott9929 yahoo.com