Aminatta Forna video clip
Civics Engagement Powerpoint
We the Civic Kids
60 Second Civics has long been one of my go-to resources for lessons on U.S. civics and government. 60 Second Civics is a daily podcast produced by the Center for Civic Education. Each 60 Second Civics episode offers a short lesson about US Civics. Along with each episode is a one question quiz about that day's episode. As of today there are 3,550 episodes. You can find 60 Second Civics on the Center for Civic Education's website, on Stitcher, or you can subscribe to it on iTunes. ( www.freetech4teachers.com )
UPSCHOOL
Want your students to change the world? Take a look at Upschool, whose mission is to “change the world through purposeful education.” The site offers free courses and other learning materials to equip students with skills, inspiration, and support to solve real-world problems that have meaningful, long-term impact on communities across the world. Many offerings align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, empowering learners to tackle global challenges like social, environmental, and economic issues.video
The Center for Civic EducationThe Center for Civic Education helps students with their civic education and prepare them for a more engaged civic life. To fulfill this mission, the Center provides a wide variety of materials including textbooks, eBooks, lesson plans, free courses, and many more. The Center also offers teachers and educators professional development resources in the form of webinars, research programs (e.g., the Project Research Program ), online courses , and many more.
Teaching Elementary Students About the Concept of Injustice
How Math and English Teachers Encourage Civic Engagement
Research at the Crossroads of Story, Media, and Social Awareness X-Media Lab, a research hub in Harvard Graduate School of Education, works at the crossroads of education, media, digital technology, and prevention science—leveraging the power of stories. A team of X-Media researchers selects meaningful story content from a creative canon within the arts and humanities to help students and teachers reflect on the academic, ethical, and aesthetic importance of stories to promote humanistic values across cultures, phases of human development, genres, professions, and historical periods. X-Media Lab is working on a multiphased project using R. J. Palacio’s novel Wonder, along with the movie adaptation. Wonder tells the story of how a child with a facial deformity navigates relationships with his family and classmates as he enters a school for the first time.To bring “wonder” into the classroom, the X-Media team has created an illustrated Wonder Educator’s Resource Guide,
Game That Emphasizes Building a More Peaceful World
Minecraft has released an immersive educational game called Active Citizen, in partnership with the Nobel Peace Center and Games for Change. The goal of the game is to help educate youth worldwide about Nobel Peace Prize laureates, past and present, and foster an understanding of the skills needed to drive positive change in the world.
Teaching Tools to Support a Global ClassroomWorld Savvy works with educators to make classrooms more inclusive, relevant, and engaging. The organization’s standards-aligned educational resources, curriculum, and teaching tools support the integration of global competence into teaching and learning. All content is free and accessible to anyone interested in globalizing their classroom or learning environment. A library of resources includes case studies (student-inquiry approach), knowledge-to-action (design thinking), multilingual learner toolkit, and student projects
Exploring Social Justice Issues Through PBL The open-ended work in project-based learning can help students explore issues that matter to them.
The Better Arguments Project "It is a national civic initiative created to help bridge divides – not by papering over those divides but by helping Americans have Better Arguments. In this sense, arguments don’t have to drive us apart. Better Arguments can bring us together. In partnership with communities and advisers around the country, we have synthesized three dimensions and five principles of a Better Argument."
🎯Social Studies Inquiry Kits give you access to great questions and powerful primary sources. Each kit contains three guiding questions, five primary sources, and one secondary source. The Inquiry Kits are designed specifically to help as you plan your instruction. The Kits are organized to align with units in both US History and World History classes with another 60 lessons focused on government and civics.
Projects That Inspire Students to Become Changemakers
The nonprofit Makers for Change (M4C) serves students and teachers by increasing equitable access to advanced technologies, supporting community engagement in makerspaces, and inspiring makers to become changemakers. Students are empowered to start chapters at their schools and learn about making through a social impact lens.
Passion to Purpose (P2P) An open-source online tool, lets learners flex and grow their civic imagination muscles. Students are guided through a series of engaging prompts, such as “What do you geek out about?” “What do you want to protest?” With the aid of a built-in randomizer, students land on an unexpected “How might we …” question. P2P can serve as a brainstorming tool to help students launch their own inspired project for media action and civic change.
Learning for Justice
Learning for Justice features curated resources to teach students about concepts related to social justice and equity. Resources offered touch on diverse topics including: race and ethnicity, religion, ability, rights and activism, bullying and bias, gender and sexual identity, immigration, and more.
Equity Literacy Institute
The Equity Literacy Institute offers free and downloadable resources designed by EdChange and the Equity Literacy Institute touching on topics related to multiculturalism, equity, and social justice.
So Just
So Just provides access to primary source documents on social justice. The site's collection features "historic speeches, songs, poetry, and manifestos on human rights and social justice. So*Just is a free resources from EdChange and the Equity Literacy Institute."
Macmillan Education Cultural Awareness Collection
Macmillan Education offers this selection of courses to use in class to teach students about cultural awareness.
What So Proudly We Hail This is a literary-based e-curriculum for history and civics.demonstrate how short stories, speeches, and songs can be used to enhance civic education and how a pedagogical approach that stresses learning through inquiry can make primary sources come alive for students of all ages.
iThrive Sim - Free online role-playing simulation games that address media literacy, history, civics education, and SEL for high school social studies and humanities students.
Activate is designed to provide teachers and students with immersive and effective tools for learning about civic issues. In the game, students campaign for an issue of their choice, become a local leader, and start a national movement.
The Three Branches of the United States Government
iThrive Games Grades 9 - 12 Games empower teens to discover and use their unique strengths, unlock their potential, and take charge of their well-being. "iThrive Sim's suite of role-playing simulation games meet the moment, providing relevant game-based learning experiences that make media literacy, history, and civics educationcome alive in high school social studies and humanities classrooms."
Learning for Justice Educate children and youth to be active participants in a diverse democracy. The site provides free resources to educators—teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioner,. to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants. The program emphasizes social justice and anti-bias. It has a resources called “Moment.” Every weekly moment (they have an impressive archive) “contains critical materials to address what’s happening in the classroom – and the culture – right now. ”
Passion to Purpose (P2P) lets learners flex and grow their civic imagination muscles. Students are guided through a series of engaging prompts, such as “What do you geek out about?” “What do you want to protest?” With the aid of a built-in randomizer, students land on an unexpected “How might we …” question.
Civil Discourse and Difficult Decisions is a national initiative of the federal courts that brings high school and college students into federal courthouses for legal proceedings stemming from situations in which law-abiding young people can find themselves. These court hearings (not mock trials) are realistic simulations that showcase jury deliberations in which all students participate, using civil discourse skills.
Teaching for Change "Teaching for Change provides teachers and parents with the tools to create schools where students learn to read, write, and change the world. By drawing direct connections to real world issues, Teaching for Change encourages teachers and students to question and re-think the world inside and outside their classrooms, build a more equitable, multicultural society, and become active global citizens."
Teaching While White about the anxiety white teachers often feel while trying to teach about those difficult topics, especially to students of color.
Civics Renewal Network is a consortium of nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations committed to strengthening civic life in the United States by increasing the quality of civics education in the nation’s schools and improving accessibility to high-quality, no-cost learning materials. On the organization’s website, teachers will find resources from these organizations, searchable by subject, grade, resource type, standards, and teaching strat
Promoting civic engagement through children's literature
Citizenship and Elementary Education- how do you teach that?
The Best Posts & Articles On Building Influence & Creating Change
How to be Civically Engaged When the term "civic engagement" is mentioned, what typically comes to mind? Is it voting? Or paying taxes? In this collection, explore the different (and interesting) ways you can become more civically engaged. Videos and lesson plans
Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, envisions a world in which children learn to care about others and the common good, treat people well day to day, come to understand and seek fairness and justice, and do what is right even at times at a cost to themselves. See resources page
Teaching Civics at All Grade Levels Has Taken on a Renewed Urgency
Center for Civics Education
Extensive educational resources
Global Problem Solvers is designed to introduce middle-to-high-school students to social innovation with a particular focus on how they can use technology to create effective solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems. The series of videos, engaging characters, and teacher resources provide students with a basic set of problem-solving tools for turning their visions for change into a practicable reality. So you get a handy little tool perfect for starting conversations around civic engagement and turning those conversations into actual plans.
article, “‘I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier:’ Ideas and Strategies for Using Music from the National Jukebox to Teach Difficult Topics in History,” provides ideas and resources for incorporating sheet music and sound recordings to encourage student inquiry.
Digital Project-based Social Studies Curriculum Students of History offers a social studies curriculum that includes units with activities to help students in grades 7–10 understand key concepts in US history, world history, civics, and American government. The units are based on state and national social studies standards and include project-based learning (PBL), digital activities, primary sources, and more. Students can type directly on their pages, insert images, and drag and drop information for a variety of interactive activities. The curricula also include Interactive Notebooks, with graphic organizers, creative foldables, timelines, and more. In addition, each unit provides several primary source activities, secondary source readings, and worksheets for in-class activities or homework. The units also offer a variety of engaging projects in which students work together in groups or individually. These include history simulations and station activities to get students up and moving around the room. An in-depth Project-Based Learning packet includes everything teachers need to bring PBL assessments to any unit in their curriculum. Editable PowerPoints with Guided Notes are filled with images, and printable guided notes pages or graphic organizers help students to focus on key concepts. Teachers can sign up on the website to receive a free sample pack with more than 30 pages of resources.
Interactive Multimedia “I Have a Dream” SpeechFreedom’s Ring is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, animated. On the site, students can compare the written and spoken speech, explore multimedia images, listen to movement activists, and uncover historical context. Freedom’s Ring is an especially powerful resource because it covers the whole speech in an interactive and multimedia format.
Eagle Eye Citizen Citizen engages middle and high school students in solving and creating interactive challenges on American history, civics, and government with Library of Congress primary sources in order to develop students' civic understanding and historical thinking skills.
iCivics is an excellent source of educational games related to various topics in civics and government. iCivics has steadily grown over the years to now offer twenty-one educational games for students. All of the games require students to take on a decision making role. To succeed in the games students have to apply their understanding of the rules and functions local, state, or Federal government. Some games require an understanding of the U.S. court system and or the Constitution. www.freetech4teachers.com
Case Maker is a free service designed for middle school social studies teachers and their students. Case Maker uses primary sources from the Library of Congress as the basis of activities in which students have to build a case in response to real civics scenarios. For example, the first cast that I tried was about anger toward immigrants. In that scenario students had to use evidence in the form of primary sources to support the claim that many of those who are angry toward immigrants come from families that were once immigrants themselves. . www.freetech4teachers.com
Let's Talk Politics is an Alexa app designed for reviewing and learning about U.S. government. Let's Talk Politics is an interactive game in which Alexa asks you questions about the U.S. political system and you speak your answers. The app provides explanations of the correct answers after you reply to each question. Unlike typical online games in which students pick a level to play, Let's Talk Politics adjusts the difficulty of t the game in response to how players are answering questions. Watch the following video to see a demonstration of Let's Talk Politics. . www.freetech4teachers.com
Teaching Civics website – a place with over 800 lesson plans. They also have some handy ed resources.
Strategies for Making a Difference from the newly revised edition of Holocaust and Human Behavior, to challenge your students to do just this. Help them think through small steps they can take to bring about positive change in their community.
Initiative Sharing Voices of DiversityThe I Am From Project a way to celebrate diversity at a time when the nation is divided by hatred and fear. The central goals are to help people of all ages and backgrounds use the “Where I’m From” poem as a prompt to write about experiences that shape them, to bring these voices together in community, to get them heard locally, and to create a national “river of voices and images,” reminding the people of America that diversity is the country’s origin and strength.
Resources Sharing The History Of Teens Organizing For Justice
Level Up Village partners students from developing nations with students in the US to learn about design and engineering, and in the process, they learn about global collaboration.
Does Science Education Need A Civic Engagement Makeover?
Teaching Civic Engagement Across the Curriculum
Volunteer Match
Strategies for teaching civic engagement To teach students how to evaluate the success of social justice movements, ninth-grade teacher Matthew Colley recommends allowing students to develop the criteria they need to make critical assessments. In this blog post, he outlines how he also has used historical case studies from the civil rights movement with his students.
Six Proven Strategies for Effective Civic Learning
iCivics offers a range of practical, dynamic, and standards-aligned resources tailored to the needs of classroom teachers. They have over 200 resources that are FREE and accessible to all.
DBQuest Developed by iCivic from iCivics, DBQuest teaches history and civics through the use of primary source documents and evidence-based learning. It offers a platform, accessible with mobile devices, that reinforces evidence-based reasoning and Document Based Questioning by teaching students to identify and evaluate evidence, contextualize information, and write sound supporting arguments.
Case Maker is a customizable system for inquiry-based learning for K-12 students using primary sources from the Library of Congress. Modeled after the ‘observe, reflect, question,’ framework developed under the TPS program, Case Maker guides students to challenge a question, collect evidence, and make a case.
Eagle Eye CitizenDeveloped by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media Eagle Eye Citizen engages middle and high school students in solving and creating interactive challenges on American history, civics, and government with Library of Congress primary sources in order to develop students' civic understanding and historical thinking skills.
Engaging Congress Developed by the Indiana University Center on Representative Government Engaging Congress is a series of game-based learning activities that explores the basic tenets of representative government and the challenges that it faces in contemporary society. Primary source documents are used to examine the history and evolution of issues that confront Congress today.
KidCitizen KidCitizen introduces a new way for young students (K-5) to engage with history through primary sources. In KidCitizen’s nine interactive episodes, children explore civics and government concepts by investigating primary source photographs from the Library of Congress. They also connect what they find with their daily lives. KidCitizen includes cloud software tools that let educators create their own episodes and share them with students.
Guide for Responding to Hate The Southern Poverty Law Center offers a freely downloadable guide that sets out 10 principles with actionable ideas for fighting hate at the community level
How Can We Best Facilitate Conversations Around Controversial Topics?
Yes, Race and Politics Belong in the Classroom: Ten tips for teachers to engage students in difficult conversations
“Best” lists related to race and racism, including The Best Explanations For Why You Shouldn’t Say “All Lives Matter” and New & Revised: Resources To Help Us Predominantly White Teachers To Reflect On How Race Influences Our Work.
How White Savior Movies Hurt Hollywood and White Savior The Movie Trailer Parody
Empatico helps teachers in different countries connect their classrooms and encourage an appreciation of different perspectives. Free for users, this new platform features standards-aligned lessons suitable for children aged 8–10. The lessons are like miniprojects. They start with an entry event that partner teachers facilitate separately to spark inquiry and activate their students’ prior knowledge. Lesson plans scaffold the videoconference with tips to encourage perspective taking and empathy building, and then wrap up with guided reflection activities in each classroom. The platform also includes a suite of technology tools. Once teachers sign up, Empatico handles matchmaking.
Generation Citizen
One and All Initiative
Civic Youth
Readworks.org This website offers a wide range of lesson plans, comprehension units, and reading passages organized by skill and Lexile level.
The latest batch of articles added to ReadWorks covers topics in social studies. The articles and lesson plans for K-5 primarily deal with topics in U.S. History and civics.
60 Second Civics is one of my favorite resources for lessons on U.S. civics and government. 60 Second Civics is a daily podcast produced by the Center for Civic Education. Each 60 Second Civics episode offers a short lesson about US Civics. Along with each episode is a one question quiz about that day's episode.
Lynching In America. Google has supported the development of a brand-new site created by the Equal Justice Initiative. It includes multi-media resources and maps, along with discussions on how it relates to criminal justice today.
Civics and Government Lesson Plans – Library of Congress
What better place than the Library of Congress to find handy lessons and resources about the government?
Our Courts: 21st Century Civics
Our Courts is an interactive online resource supported by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The site's interactive learning activities can provide students with opportunities to understand the importance of civic participation.
Center for Civics Education - Make sure you explore the podcasts, slideshows, and videos. Not to be missed is the 60 second civic education podcast series.
World Food Programme
Get involved in fighting hunger worldwide
How economic inequality might affect a society's well-being
The Best Practical Resources For Helping Teachers, Students & Families Respond To Immigration Challenges)
The Wonderment is a global community that promotes awareness and action as youth explore the world around them. Young people submit their ideas for community-improvement projects to the site, and with each submission a “Wondermeter” rises higher. Once the Wondermeter reaches the top, an outside donor will fund the latest user-chosen project—for example, a water-sanitation project in a developing country. Through the site, youth can take their compassion and caring for others and crowdsource community-improvement projects around the world.
TakingITGlobal
An online community that connects youth to find inspiration, access information, get involved, and take action in their local and global communities. It's the world's most popular online community for young people interested in making a difference,
iEARN
helps to link schools through international projects
We Can Change
You can get ideas for projects, Thjere is a contest, but you can use the resources without entering.
Game: Ayiti: The Cost of Life
Players manage life for a virtual family of five in rural Haiti. The object of the game is to make spending decisions--saving money vs. throwing a party vs. buying food--that keep the family healthy. (For more civics sites click here) Classroom support materials for Ayiti - developed by UNICEF
Quest Atlantis
Students collaborate with students all over the world in a 3D environment helping the council of the virtual world, Atlantis, solve problems impacting its water, air, health, and animal life. Ages 9 -14
Turf Mutt
Saving the planet one yard at a time.
We Are What We Do's Action Tracker is a list of simple actions that anyone can do to make the world a better place. The Action Tracker offers suggestions for improving the environment, making someone else's day better, or improving your personal health. You can check in on the Action Tracker to mark your behaviors. A classroom section that includes many resources for implementing the Action Tracker in your classroom. The classroom section includes videos, downloadable charts, and worksheets for classroom use.
What So Proudly We Hail (WSPWH) provides free resources and lesson plans to language arts and social studies teachers, demonstrating how short stories, speeches, and songs can be used to enhance civics education. For example, The Meaning of America, a ten-part curriculum, investigates what kinds of citizens are likely to emerge in a nation founded on individual rights, equality, and freedom of religion; and what virtues are required for a robust citizenry. The curriculum explores American character and identity through the use of imaginative fiction. It includes short stories by Jack London, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Willa Cather, and Kurt Vonnegut. Accompanying the curriculum are discussion guides and video model conversations.
CyberSchoolBus at the UN
Curriculum for Peace Education, Poverty, Human Rights, World Hunger, Indigenous People, Rights at Work, Ethnic Discrimination, Racial Discrimination. Also an opportunity for students to design and build an "ideal" city in all its complexity.
School Service
How to Bring Service Learning to your School
The Giraffe Heroes Project is an organization that, according to its Web site, is for "people who have the courage to stick their necks out for the common good."
The Skills for Action program is offered by Lions Quest, an initiative of the Lions Clubs International Foundation.
Barbara Lewis's books engaging, such as The Kid's Guide to Social Action, The Kid's Guide to Service Projects, and What Do You Stand For?
Vote Smart
National Alliance for Civics Education
Civnet
Roots and Shoots – Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots is the Jane Goodall Institute’s (JGI) global youth-led community action program, comprised of thousands of young people as they connect knowledge and service with the real world.
ePals – Another wonderful site allowing students to collaborate across the globe. Check out the amazing possibilities. It provides ways for teachers to connect with other teachers and decide on projects their students can do together.
Edutopia Resources for Building Community Partnerships – Learn how schools can benefit from the support and expertise of local businesses, organizations, and individuals, and discover strategies for fostering successful business and community partnerships
Skype in the Classroom - You will enjoy this free community that offers live transformative educational experiences for students including Virtual Field Trips, talks from Guest Speakers, classroom to classroom connections, and live collaboration projects.
Projects By Jen - This a wonderful site that has been successfully encouraging teachers since 1999 to use online projects in their PreK-6 classrooms.
To Global Projects - This organization id made possible through the support of the Longview Foundation, iEARN-USA has compiled an online Teachers’ Guide to Global, Collaborative Teaching and Learning.
Online Collaboration Curricula - Explore this awesome collection of ideas that students can collaborate on using the internet. You may need to find that partner classroom.
Journey North is one of North America’s premiere citizen science projects for children and the general public. The project has broad participation, with over 60,000 registered sites in the US, Canada, and Mexico — including families, teachers, schools, nature centers, professional scientists and novices.
Biblionasium - Explore this site that is the fun, reading-focused social network for kids in elementary and middle school. The site emphasis is to connect kids in an encouraging community of friends, family and their educators, Biblionasium excites, engages and encourages a love of the written word. Kids can log their reading, play games, complete reading challenges and earn rewards. Requires parents to sign children up.
We the Civic Kids
60 Second Civics has long been one of my go-to resources for lessons on U.S. civics and government. 60 Second Civics is a daily podcast produced by the Center for Civic Education. Each 60 Second Civics episode offers a short lesson about US Civics. Along with each episode is a one question quiz about that day's episode. As of today there are 3,550 episodes. You can find 60 Second Civics on the Center for Civic Education's website, on Stitcher, or you can subscribe to it on iTunes. ( www.freetech4teachers.com )
UPSCHOOL
Want your students to change the world? Take a look at Upschool, whose mission is to “change the world through purposeful education.” The site offers free courses and other learning materials to equip students with skills, inspiration, and support to solve real-world problems that have meaningful, long-term impact on communities across the world. Many offerings align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, empowering learners to tackle global challenges like social, environmental, and economic issues.video
The Center for Civic EducationThe Center for Civic Education helps students with their civic education and prepare them for a more engaged civic life. To fulfill this mission, the Center provides a wide variety of materials including textbooks, eBooks, lesson plans, free courses, and many more. The Center also offers teachers and educators professional development resources in the form of webinars, research programs (e.g., the Project Research Program ), online courses , and many more.
Teaching Elementary Students About the Concept of Injustice
How Math and English Teachers Encourage Civic Engagement
Research at the Crossroads of Story, Media, and Social Awareness X-Media Lab, a research hub in Harvard Graduate School of Education, works at the crossroads of education, media, digital technology, and prevention science—leveraging the power of stories. A team of X-Media researchers selects meaningful story content from a creative canon within the arts and humanities to help students and teachers reflect on the academic, ethical, and aesthetic importance of stories to promote humanistic values across cultures, phases of human development, genres, professions, and historical periods. X-Media Lab is working on a multiphased project using R. J. Palacio’s novel Wonder, along with the movie adaptation. Wonder tells the story of how a child with a facial deformity navigates relationships with his family and classmates as he enters a school for the first time.To bring “wonder” into the classroom, the X-Media team has created an illustrated Wonder Educator’s Resource Guide,
Game That Emphasizes Building a More Peaceful World
Minecraft has released an immersive educational game called Active Citizen, in partnership with the Nobel Peace Center and Games for Change. The goal of the game is to help educate youth worldwide about Nobel Peace Prize laureates, past and present, and foster an understanding of the skills needed to drive positive change in the world.
Teaching Tools to Support a Global ClassroomWorld Savvy works with educators to make classrooms more inclusive, relevant, and engaging. The organization’s standards-aligned educational resources, curriculum, and teaching tools support the integration of global competence into teaching and learning. All content is free and accessible to anyone interested in globalizing their classroom or learning environment. A library of resources includes case studies (student-inquiry approach), knowledge-to-action (design thinking), multilingual learner toolkit, and student projects
Exploring Social Justice Issues Through PBL The open-ended work in project-based learning can help students explore issues that matter to them.
The Better Arguments Project "It is a national civic initiative created to help bridge divides – not by papering over those divides but by helping Americans have Better Arguments. In this sense, arguments don’t have to drive us apart. Better Arguments can bring us together. In partnership with communities and advisers around the country, we have synthesized three dimensions and five principles of a Better Argument."
🎯Social Studies Inquiry Kits give you access to great questions and powerful primary sources. Each kit contains three guiding questions, five primary sources, and one secondary source. The Inquiry Kits are designed specifically to help as you plan your instruction. The Kits are organized to align with units in both US History and World History classes with another 60 lessons focused on government and civics.
Projects That Inspire Students to Become Changemakers
The nonprofit Makers for Change (M4C) serves students and teachers by increasing equitable access to advanced technologies, supporting community engagement in makerspaces, and inspiring makers to become changemakers. Students are empowered to start chapters at their schools and learn about making through a social impact lens.
Passion to Purpose (P2P) An open-source online tool, lets learners flex and grow their civic imagination muscles. Students are guided through a series of engaging prompts, such as “What do you geek out about?” “What do you want to protest?” With the aid of a built-in randomizer, students land on an unexpected “How might we …” question. P2P can serve as a brainstorming tool to help students launch their own inspired project for media action and civic change.
Learning for Justice
Learning for Justice features curated resources to teach students about concepts related to social justice and equity. Resources offered touch on diverse topics including: race and ethnicity, religion, ability, rights and activism, bullying and bias, gender and sexual identity, immigration, and more.
Equity Literacy Institute
The Equity Literacy Institute offers free and downloadable resources designed by EdChange and the Equity Literacy Institute touching on topics related to multiculturalism, equity, and social justice.
So Just
So Just provides access to primary source documents on social justice. The site's collection features "historic speeches, songs, poetry, and manifestos on human rights and social justice. So*Just is a free resources from EdChange and the Equity Literacy Institute."
Macmillan Education Cultural Awareness Collection
Macmillan Education offers this selection of courses to use in class to teach students about cultural awareness.
What So Proudly We Hail This is a literary-based e-curriculum for history and civics.demonstrate how short stories, speeches, and songs can be used to enhance civic education and how a pedagogical approach that stresses learning through inquiry can make primary sources come alive for students of all ages.
iThrive Sim - Free online role-playing simulation games that address media literacy, history, civics education, and SEL for high school social studies and humanities students.
Activate is designed to provide teachers and students with immersive and effective tools for learning about civic issues. In the game, students campaign for an issue of their choice, become a local leader, and start a national movement.
The Three Branches of the United States Government
iThrive Games Grades 9 - 12 Games empower teens to discover and use their unique strengths, unlock their potential, and take charge of their well-being. "iThrive Sim's suite of role-playing simulation games meet the moment, providing relevant game-based learning experiences that make media literacy, history, and civics educationcome alive in high school social studies and humanities classrooms."
Learning for Justice Educate children and youth to be active participants in a diverse democracy. The site provides free resources to educators—teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioner,. to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants. The program emphasizes social justice and anti-bias. It has a resources called “Moment.” Every weekly moment (they have an impressive archive) “contains critical materials to address what’s happening in the classroom – and the culture – right now. ”
Passion to Purpose (P2P) lets learners flex and grow their civic imagination muscles. Students are guided through a series of engaging prompts, such as “What do you geek out about?” “What do you want to protest?” With the aid of a built-in randomizer, students land on an unexpected “How might we …” question.
Civil Discourse and Difficult Decisions is a national initiative of the federal courts that brings high school and college students into federal courthouses for legal proceedings stemming from situations in which law-abiding young people can find themselves. These court hearings (not mock trials) are realistic simulations that showcase jury deliberations in which all students participate, using civil discourse skills.
Teaching for Change "Teaching for Change provides teachers and parents with the tools to create schools where students learn to read, write, and change the world. By drawing direct connections to real world issues, Teaching for Change encourages teachers and students to question and re-think the world inside and outside their classrooms, build a more equitable, multicultural society, and become active global citizens."
Teaching While White about the anxiety white teachers often feel while trying to teach about those difficult topics, especially to students of color.
Civics Renewal Network is a consortium of nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations committed to strengthening civic life in the United States by increasing the quality of civics education in the nation’s schools and improving accessibility to high-quality, no-cost learning materials. On the organization’s website, teachers will find resources from these organizations, searchable by subject, grade, resource type, standards, and teaching strat
Promoting civic engagement through children's literature
Citizenship and Elementary Education- how do you teach that?
The Best Posts & Articles On Building Influence & Creating Change
How to be Civically Engaged When the term "civic engagement" is mentioned, what typically comes to mind? Is it voting? Or paying taxes? In this collection, explore the different (and interesting) ways you can become more civically engaged. Videos and lesson plans
Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, envisions a world in which children learn to care about others and the common good, treat people well day to day, come to understand and seek fairness and justice, and do what is right even at times at a cost to themselves. See resources page
Teaching Civics at All Grade Levels Has Taken on a Renewed Urgency
Center for Civics Education
Extensive educational resources
Global Problem Solvers is designed to introduce middle-to-high-school students to social innovation with a particular focus on how they can use technology to create effective solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems. The series of videos, engaging characters, and teacher resources provide students with a basic set of problem-solving tools for turning their visions for change into a practicable reality. So you get a handy little tool perfect for starting conversations around civic engagement and turning those conversations into actual plans.
article, “‘I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier:’ Ideas and Strategies for Using Music from the National Jukebox to Teach Difficult Topics in History,” provides ideas and resources for incorporating sheet music and sound recordings to encourage student inquiry.
Digital Project-based Social Studies Curriculum Students of History offers a social studies curriculum that includes units with activities to help students in grades 7–10 understand key concepts in US history, world history, civics, and American government. The units are based on state and national social studies standards and include project-based learning (PBL), digital activities, primary sources, and more. Students can type directly on their pages, insert images, and drag and drop information for a variety of interactive activities. The curricula also include Interactive Notebooks, with graphic organizers, creative foldables, timelines, and more. In addition, each unit provides several primary source activities, secondary source readings, and worksheets for in-class activities or homework. The units also offer a variety of engaging projects in which students work together in groups or individually. These include history simulations and station activities to get students up and moving around the room. An in-depth Project-Based Learning packet includes everything teachers need to bring PBL assessments to any unit in their curriculum. Editable PowerPoints with Guided Notes are filled with images, and printable guided notes pages or graphic organizers help students to focus on key concepts. Teachers can sign up on the website to receive a free sample pack with more than 30 pages of resources.
Interactive Multimedia “I Have a Dream” SpeechFreedom’s Ring is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, animated. On the site, students can compare the written and spoken speech, explore multimedia images, listen to movement activists, and uncover historical context. Freedom’s Ring is an especially powerful resource because it covers the whole speech in an interactive and multimedia format.
Eagle Eye Citizen Citizen engages middle and high school students in solving and creating interactive challenges on American history, civics, and government with Library of Congress primary sources in order to develop students' civic understanding and historical thinking skills.
iCivics is an excellent source of educational games related to various topics in civics and government. iCivics has steadily grown over the years to now offer twenty-one educational games for students. All of the games require students to take on a decision making role. To succeed in the games students have to apply their understanding of the rules and functions local, state, or Federal government. Some games require an understanding of the U.S. court system and or the Constitution. www.freetech4teachers.com
Case Maker is a free service designed for middle school social studies teachers and their students. Case Maker uses primary sources from the Library of Congress as the basis of activities in which students have to build a case in response to real civics scenarios. For example, the first cast that I tried was about anger toward immigrants. In that scenario students had to use evidence in the form of primary sources to support the claim that many of those who are angry toward immigrants come from families that were once immigrants themselves. . www.freetech4teachers.com
Let's Talk Politics is an Alexa app designed for reviewing and learning about U.S. government. Let's Talk Politics is an interactive game in which Alexa asks you questions about the U.S. political system and you speak your answers. The app provides explanations of the correct answers after you reply to each question. Unlike typical online games in which students pick a level to play, Let's Talk Politics adjusts the difficulty of t the game in response to how players are answering questions. Watch the following video to see a demonstration of Let's Talk Politics. . www.freetech4teachers.com
Teaching Civics website – a place with over 800 lesson plans. They also have some handy ed resources.
Strategies for Making a Difference from the newly revised edition of Holocaust and Human Behavior, to challenge your students to do just this. Help them think through small steps they can take to bring about positive change in their community.
Initiative Sharing Voices of DiversityThe I Am From Project a way to celebrate diversity at a time when the nation is divided by hatred and fear. The central goals are to help people of all ages and backgrounds use the “Where I’m From” poem as a prompt to write about experiences that shape them, to bring these voices together in community, to get them heard locally, and to create a national “river of voices and images,” reminding the people of America that diversity is the country’s origin and strength.
Resources Sharing The History Of Teens Organizing For Justice
Level Up Village partners students from developing nations with students in the US to learn about design and engineering, and in the process, they learn about global collaboration.
Does Science Education Need A Civic Engagement Makeover?
Teaching Civic Engagement Across the Curriculum
Volunteer Match
Strategies for teaching civic engagement To teach students how to evaluate the success of social justice movements, ninth-grade teacher Matthew Colley recommends allowing students to develop the criteria they need to make critical assessments. In this blog post, he outlines how he also has used historical case studies from the civil rights movement with his students.
Six Proven Strategies for Effective Civic Learning
iCivics offers a range of practical, dynamic, and standards-aligned resources tailored to the needs of classroom teachers. They have over 200 resources that are FREE and accessible to all.
DBQuest Developed by iCivic from iCivics, DBQuest teaches history and civics through the use of primary source documents and evidence-based learning. It offers a platform, accessible with mobile devices, that reinforces evidence-based reasoning and Document Based Questioning by teaching students to identify and evaluate evidence, contextualize information, and write sound supporting arguments.
Case Maker is a customizable system for inquiry-based learning for K-12 students using primary sources from the Library of Congress. Modeled after the ‘observe, reflect, question,’ framework developed under the TPS program, Case Maker guides students to challenge a question, collect evidence, and make a case.
Eagle Eye CitizenDeveloped by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media Eagle Eye Citizen engages middle and high school students in solving and creating interactive challenges on American history, civics, and government with Library of Congress primary sources in order to develop students' civic understanding and historical thinking skills.
Engaging Congress Developed by the Indiana University Center on Representative Government Engaging Congress is a series of game-based learning activities that explores the basic tenets of representative government and the challenges that it faces in contemporary society. Primary source documents are used to examine the history and evolution of issues that confront Congress today.
KidCitizen KidCitizen introduces a new way for young students (K-5) to engage with history through primary sources. In KidCitizen’s nine interactive episodes, children explore civics and government concepts by investigating primary source photographs from the Library of Congress. They also connect what they find with their daily lives. KidCitizen includes cloud software tools that let educators create their own episodes and share them with students.
Guide for Responding to Hate The Southern Poverty Law Center offers a freely downloadable guide that sets out 10 principles with actionable ideas for fighting hate at the community level
How Can We Best Facilitate Conversations Around Controversial Topics?
Yes, Race and Politics Belong in the Classroom: Ten tips for teachers to engage students in difficult conversations
“Best” lists related to race and racism, including The Best Explanations For Why You Shouldn’t Say “All Lives Matter” and New & Revised: Resources To Help Us Predominantly White Teachers To Reflect On How Race Influences Our Work.
How White Savior Movies Hurt Hollywood and White Savior The Movie Trailer Parody
Empatico helps teachers in different countries connect their classrooms and encourage an appreciation of different perspectives. Free for users, this new platform features standards-aligned lessons suitable for children aged 8–10. The lessons are like miniprojects. They start with an entry event that partner teachers facilitate separately to spark inquiry and activate their students’ prior knowledge. Lesson plans scaffold the videoconference with tips to encourage perspective taking and empathy building, and then wrap up with guided reflection activities in each classroom. The platform also includes a suite of technology tools. Once teachers sign up, Empatico handles matchmaking.
Generation Citizen
One and All Initiative
Civic Youth
Readworks.org This website offers a wide range of lesson plans, comprehension units, and reading passages organized by skill and Lexile level.
The latest batch of articles added to ReadWorks covers topics in social studies. The articles and lesson plans for K-5 primarily deal with topics in U.S. History and civics.
60 Second Civics is one of my favorite resources for lessons on U.S. civics and government. 60 Second Civics is a daily podcast produced by the Center for Civic Education. Each 60 Second Civics episode offers a short lesson about US Civics. Along with each episode is a one question quiz about that day's episode.
Lynching In America. Google has supported the development of a brand-new site created by the Equal Justice Initiative. It includes multi-media resources and maps, along with discussions on how it relates to criminal justice today.
Civics and Government Lesson Plans – Library of Congress
What better place than the Library of Congress to find handy lessons and resources about the government?
Our Courts: 21st Century Civics
Our Courts is an interactive online resource supported by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The site's interactive learning activities can provide students with opportunities to understand the importance of civic participation.
Center for Civics Education - Make sure you explore the podcasts, slideshows, and videos. Not to be missed is the 60 second civic education podcast series.
World Food Programme
Get involved in fighting hunger worldwide
How economic inequality might affect a society's well-being
The Best Practical Resources For Helping Teachers, Students & Families Respond To Immigration Challenges)
The Wonderment is a global community that promotes awareness and action as youth explore the world around them. Young people submit their ideas for community-improvement projects to the site, and with each submission a “Wondermeter” rises higher. Once the Wondermeter reaches the top, an outside donor will fund the latest user-chosen project—for example, a water-sanitation project in a developing country. Through the site, youth can take their compassion and caring for others and crowdsource community-improvement projects around the world.
TakingITGlobal
An online community that connects youth to find inspiration, access information, get involved, and take action in their local and global communities. It's the world's most popular online community for young people interested in making a difference,
iEARN
helps to link schools through international projects
We Can Change
You can get ideas for projects, Thjere is a contest, but you can use the resources without entering.
Game: Ayiti: The Cost of Life
Players manage life for a virtual family of five in rural Haiti. The object of the game is to make spending decisions--saving money vs. throwing a party vs. buying food--that keep the family healthy. (For more civics sites click here) Classroom support materials for Ayiti - developed by UNICEF
Quest Atlantis
Students collaborate with students all over the world in a 3D environment helping the council of the virtual world, Atlantis, solve problems impacting its water, air, health, and animal life. Ages 9 -14
Turf Mutt
Saving the planet one yard at a time.
We Are What We Do's Action Tracker is a list of simple actions that anyone can do to make the world a better place. The Action Tracker offers suggestions for improving the environment, making someone else's day better, or improving your personal health. You can check in on the Action Tracker to mark your behaviors. A classroom section that includes many resources for implementing the Action Tracker in your classroom. The classroom section includes videos, downloadable charts, and worksheets for classroom use.
What So Proudly We Hail (WSPWH) provides free resources and lesson plans to language arts and social studies teachers, demonstrating how short stories, speeches, and songs can be used to enhance civics education. For example, The Meaning of America, a ten-part curriculum, investigates what kinds of citizens are likely to emerge in a nation founded on individual rights, equality, and freedom of religion; and what virtues are required for a robust citizenry. The curriculum explores American character and identity through the use of imaginative fiction. It includes short stories by Jack London, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Willa Cather, and Kurt Vonnegut. Accompanying the curriculum are discussion guides and video model conversations.
CyberSchoolBus at the UN
Curriculum for Peace Education, Poverty, Human Rights, World Hunger, Indigenous People, Rights at Work, Ethnic Discrimination, Racial Discrimination. Also an opportunity for students to design and build an "ideal" city in all its complexity.
School Service
How to Bring Service Learning to your School
The Giraffe Heroes Project is an organization that, according to its Web site, is for "people who have the courage to stick their necks out for the common good."
The Skills for Action program is offered by Lions Quest, an initiative of the Lions Clubs International Foundation.
Barbara Lewis's books engaging, such as The Kid's Guide to Social Action, The Kid's Guide to Service Projects, and What Do You Stand For?
Vote Smart
National Alliance for Civics Education
Civnet
Roots and Shoots – Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots is the Jane Goodall Institute’s (JGI) global youth-led community action program, comprised of thousands of young people as they connect knowledge and service with the real world.
ePals – Another wonderful site allowing students to collaborate across the globe. Check out the amazing possibilities. It provides ways for teachers to connect with other teachers and decide on projects their students can do together.
Edutopia Resources for Building Community Partnerships – Learn how schools can benefit from the support and expertise of local businesses, organizations, and individuals, and discover strategies for fostering successful business and community partnerships
Skype in the Classroom - You will enjoy this free community that offers live transformative educational experiences for students including Virtual Field Trips, talks from Guest Speakers, classroom to classroom connections, and live collaboration projects.
Projects By Jen - This a wonderful site that has been successfully encouraging teachers since 1999 to use online projects in their PreK-6 classrooms.
To Global Projects - This organization id made possible through the support of the Longview Foundation, iEARN-USA has compiled an online Teachers’ Guide to Global, Collaborative Teaching and Learning.
Online Collaboration Curricula - Explore this awesome collection of ideas that students can collaborate on using the internet. You may need to find that partner classroom.
Journey North is one of North America’s premiere citizen science projects for children and the general public. The project has broad participation, with over 60,000 registered sites in the US, Canada, and Mexico — including families, teachers, schools, nature centers, professional scientists and novices.
Biblionasium - Explore this site that is the fun, reading-focused social network for kids in elementary and middle school. The site emphasis is to connect kids in an encouraging community of friends, family and their educators, Biblionasium excites, engages and encourages a love of the written word. Kids can log their reading, play games, complete reading challenges and earn rewards. Requires parents to sign children up.
International
Oxfam's Cool Planet for Teachers 6-12
Oxfam's Teacher Resource site contains a wealth of information about global issues and human rights. There are lesson plans on fair trade, social justice, sustainability, and a new unit on global music. Given the nature of the issues explored, there is a special teacher's guide to teaching controversial issues. The link to "Mapping our World" takes you to a great interactive look at the world and the impact of maps on our view of the world.
Write for Rights introduces students to human rights by writing letters to help 10 real young people around the world who are at risk just for their peaceful human rights activism. By participating in Write for Rights, students develop effective writing skills and experience firsthand the power of their words to make a difference. Students’ letters are actually delivered to the people who have the power to positively influence each case.
Empatico helps teachers in different countries connect their classrooms and encourage an appreciation of different perspectives. Free for users, this new platform features standards-aligned lessons suitable for children aged 8–10. The lessons are like miniprojects. They start with an entry event that partner teachers facilitate separately to spark inquiry and activate their students’ prior knowledge. Lesson plans scaffold the videoconference with tips to encourage perspective taking and empathy building, and then wrap up with guided reflection activities in each classroom. The platform also includes a suite of technology tools. Once teachers sign up, Empatico handles matchmaking.
Teaching Tools to Support a Global ClassroomWorld Savvy works with educators to make classrooms more inclusive, relevant, and engaging. The organization’s standards-aligned educational resources, curriculum, and teaching tools support the integration of global competence into teaching and learning. All content is free and accessible to anyone interested in globalizing their classroom or learning environment. A library of resources includes case studies (student-inquiry approach), knowledge-to-action (design thinking), multilingual learner toolkit, and student projects.
The Best Posts & Articles On Building Influence & Creating Change
Global Problem Solvers is designed to introduce middle-to-high-school students to social innovation with a particular focus on how they can use technology to create effective solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems. The series of videos, engaging characters, and teacher resources provide students with a basic set of problem-solving tools for turning their visions for change into a practicable reality. So you get a handy little tool perfect for starting conversations around civic engagement and turning those conversations into actual plans.
How economic inequality might affect a society's well-being
Justice Learning
A collaboration of NPR's Justice Talking show and The New York Times Learning Network. Contains activities on Constitutional and civic issues.
Strategies for Making a Difference from the newly revised edition of Holocaust and Human Behavior, to challenge your students to do just this. Help them think through small steps they can take to bring about positive change in their community.
Choices Education Program: Curriculum Resources (Brown University)
Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University provides curricular resources, professional development workshops and special projects, CHOICES engages secondary level students in international issues and contributes to a renewal of civic engagement among young people in the United States.
Flat Connections - Flat connected learning is where all learners have freedom to communicate across borders rather than up or down – with no hierarchy. There may be a small cost for portions.Teachers' Guide
The Wonderment is a global community that promotes awareness and action as youth explore the world around them. Young people submit their ideas for community-improvement projects to the site, and with each submission a “Wondermeter” rises higher. Once the Wondermeter reaches the top, an outside donor will fund the latest user-chosen project—for example, a water-sanitation project in a developing country. Through the site, youth can take their compassion and caring for others and crowdsource community-improvement projects around the world.
QUADBlogging - QuadBlogging was born in 2011 and since its conception, over 500,000 students from over 65 countries have taken part. The concept is simple, once signed up, you will be allocated a Quad containing 4 classes including yours. Each Quad will have a Quad Co-ordinator attached to it. Once contact is made between the four teachers
Global Learners Project - The Project includes several topics and activity suggestions to create engaging and interactive class to class connections. Each topic includes at least one activity that requires little to no prep, while other activities take students deeper into learning. Use this for ideas, you will still have to find a school to connect with.
Kids Go Global - Green Fairs, theatre about global issues, water audits, wetland protection and lots more. Share your projects with others. See what the rest of the world is doing. There may be some cost to some projects.
Teaching Democracy
Democray Lab is a program of developmentally sequenced online learning experiences for classroom and co-curricular use. The centerpiece of Democracy Lab is its course-based forums, through which college and high school students engage in small-group, deliberative dialogue about timely public issues with peers from many schools around the country.
American Village Curriculum
Resources to promote citizenship and thr founding of America
Teens, Crime and Community
Resources of service learning, community involvement and diversity.
Art In All Of Us - The objective of the AiA Pen Pal Program is to promote creative and artistic communication among children worldwide. They have setup a network of schools around the world, through which schools are paired and exchange informative artworks on their own country and culture.
Kids and Teens Action without Borders
This site presents thoughtful and inspiring ways for kids to take an active role in improving the community around them. Click on the "Take a Lead" link for practical ways to turn your ideas into reality. Plenty of real-life examples are provided, but some creative brainstorming in your classroom is a must. Dozens of lesson plans, covering everything from environmental issues to economics and human rights are provided in the "For Teachers" section.
Conflict Management Simulations
Students will gain greater insight into the dynamics of peacemaking, and will be better able to raise pertinent questions and concerns. The simulations included here enable participants to practice the skills of conflict management, and to test policy options to determine the preferred response to a given set of circumstances.
The Global Read Aloud - The project was created in 2010 and had a simple goal in mind; one book to connect the world. From its humble beginnings, the GRA has grown to make a truly global connection with more than 4,000,000 students having participated. This is a project that usually starts in October.
Youth Noise
Youth Noise is an online community for youth social and political activism, with opportunities to learn, share ideas and take action.
Care2
A social network website to help connect activists from around the world. It has a membership of over 9 million people. It connects individuals, organizations and responsible businesses making an impact.
Kiva
Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.
Idealist
A project of Action Without Borders, a nonprofit organization founded in 1995 with offices in the United States and Argentina. Idealist is an interactive site where people and organizations can exchange resources and ideas, locate opportunities and supporter
Change.org
Keep posted and connected to social change causes worldwide.
Do Something
Programs for teens to become active for social change causes
Fahamu
Its mission is the strengthening of social justice and hjuman rights movements
VolunteerSpot
Online application that lets volunteers and volunteer organizers connect, share and organize. No more paper and clipboards, phone chains or reply all emails, VolunteerSpot provides volunteer coordinators with a place to post project and needs and allow volunteers to sign up for open spots, send messages and help. Email calendar reminders are sent out to volunteers automatically and people can see when one event or task is filled up
Alltop
Slavery (recent, top news posts from top resources on slavery)
Pambazuka News
a Pan- African news resource for social justice
Tolerance.org
A project of the Southern Poverty Law Center - group/resources "dedicated to reducing prejudice"
Witness
a global video channel for user-generated, human rights videos
Eye to Eye with Child Labour
shares photographs and multimedia of child labour situations
25 Days to Make a Difference
story of Laura, who developed an charity project in memory of her grandfather
Wiser Earth
social network for sustainability and services for various issues
Radical Math
resource for integrating social and economic justice issues into the math curriculum
zyOzy
project for activating youth against extreme poverty)
Darfur Awareness (classroom project)