Social Studies/History/Geography
General | K- 2 | 4 - 6 | Middle and High School
General
Playing History (4-12) is a collection of more than 100 games related to topics in US and World History as well as civics and geography. The games come from a variety of sources across the web. Feedback on every game and suggestions for future additions are welcomed by the hosts of the site. Visitors to Playing History can search for games by using the tag cloud, by using the search box, or just browse through the entire list.
GameOn World is played in a manner similar to Kahoot. The teacher projects the game questions on a screen and students reply from their phones, tablets, or laptops. One of the convenient features of GameOn World is that you don't have to create an account in order to start playing fun geography and history games with your students. In GameOn World the teacher selects a game category (cities, places, and timeline are a few of the categories) and starts the game
Historical Scene Investigation The Historical Scene Investigation Project (HSI) was designed for social studies teachers who need a strong pedagogical mechanism for bringing primary sources into their classroom.
Minigames Developing Global and Cultural Awareness The League of Extraordinary Bloggers is a team of bloggers from China, japan, south Korea and Vietnam who are traveling through Asia to track down a criminal mastermind who has been stealing cultural landmarks and objects. Students can join these bloggers by taking on the role of Agent X.
Allies and Aliens: A Mission in Critical Thinking
In Allies and Aliens students become agents on an intergalactic mission for earth. As students interact with alien characters and visit websites on the “Galactic Web”, they come across varying degrees of prejudice and discrimination. These interactions help students to understand how such
PlayBrighter (gr. 1-8) A user starts out by creating a "Peeble" (avatar), then going on a variety of educational missions. These missions focus on different subject areas such as: Geography, Economics, History, and more. As a person completes a mission more and more of them become "unlocked" and they are able to purchase items/buildings.
GameOn World is played in a manner similar to Kahoot. The teacher projects the game questions on a screen and students reply from their phones, tablets, or laptops. One of the convenient features of GameOn World is that you don't have to create an account in order to start playing fun geography and history games with your students. In GameOn World the teacher selects a game category (cities, places, and timeline are a few of the categories) and starts the game
Historical Scene Investigation The Historical Scene Investigation Project (HSI) was designed for social studies teachers who need a strong pedagogical mechanism for bringing primary sources into their classroom.
Minigames Developing Global and Cultural Awareness The League of Extraordinary Bloggers is a team of bloggers from China, japan, south Korea and Vietnam who are traveling through Asia to track down a criminal mastermind who has been stealing cultural landmarks and objects. Students can join these bloggers by taking on the role of Agent X.
Allies and Aliens: A Mission in Critical Thinking
In Allies and Aliens students become agents on an intergalactic mission for earth. As students interact with alien characters and visit websites on the “Galactic Web”, they come across varying degrees of prejudice and discrimination. These interactions help students to understand how such
PlayBrighter (gr. 1-8) A user starts out by creating a "Peeble" (avatar), then going on a variety of educational missions. These missions focus on different subject areas such as: Geography, Economics, History, and more. As a person completes a mission more and more of them become "unlocked" and they are able to purchase items/buildings.
K - 2
My World K-2
Kaboose Geography and History
Communities and Community Helpers Games
Reading a Map (gr. 2-4)
Kaboose Geography and History
Communities and Community Helpers Games
Reading a Map (gr. 2-4)
Social Studies 3-6
Geography Skills Geography Games Current Events Ancient Civilizations Environment U.S. History U.S. Government
World Geography Games features 51 geography games. The games are simple identification games in which students are shown the name of a country, state, city, or geographic feature and then have to click on the correct locations.
Reach the World produces good online games for geography students.
Mapping Games
GAME LINKS gr. 4 - 12 takes you to a document with a large list of hyperlinked map games. The games cover a wide variety of maps and topics, such as countries, oceans, capitals, lakes, rivers and mountains. The document will continually be updated as new games are released.
GameOn World is played in a manner similar to Kahoot. The teacher projects the game questions on a screen and students reply from their phones, tablets, or laptops. One of the convenient features of GameOn World is that you don't have to create an account in order to start playing fun geography and history games with your students. In GameOn World the teacher selects a game category (cities, places, and timeline are a few of the categories) and starts the game
Lewis and Clark 5-8 Travel along with the Corps of Discovery
Saints and Sinners is a new National Geographic game where players role-play being a Pilgrim. It’s has some elements of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” game, along with other “role-playing” features.
GeoGuessr is a fun map-based game where students get virtually “dropped” somewhere in the world, and must explore the landscape around them through Google Street View to determine where in the world they are. When they’ve determined where in the world they are, they click on the world map to make a guess. Students will be shown the actual location they are, as well as how far off they were from the correct location.
GeoSense (4-12) An online world geography interactive game that can be played with more than one player.
Interactive map site gr 5- 8 reviews the geographic features and regions of the United States and includes a game for students to locate individual states. Following are various interactive games that follow the history of the United States geographically, including information about the Native American tribes, the colonizing of North America, and the expansion of the United States.
Playing History (4-12) is a collection of more than 100 games related to topics in US and World History as well as civics and geography. The games come from a variety of sources across the web. Feedback on every game and suggestions for future additions are welcomed by the hosts of the site. Visitors to Playing History can search for games by using the tag cloud, by using the search box, or just browse through the entire list.
GeoGames from Reach the World feature an interactive map which students drag and drop onto different elements. The beginner level games asks has student place continents and the poles in the correct position. As the games levels progress students have to place countries and capitals in their proper positions. In the Build Planet Earthsection students have to place continents, oceans, mountains, and rivers in their proper positions.
Make a Map (gr. 3-6) Students follow online directions to create a storyteller's map and compare to the original.
Longitude and Latitude Games (gr. 3-6) A Collection of games
Get Lost Compass Game (gr. 3-6) Good practice to point out the north is not always up on a compass.
Geospy You take the role of a special agent, working against the clock as you try to locate various parts of the globe. As you play, you are given three different tasks (or games) to complete.
Mission US Grade 5 - Year 9
Mission US is an interactive adventure game designed to improve the understanding of American history. The first game in a planned series, Mission 1: “For Crown or Colony?” explores the reasons for Revolution through the eyes of both Loyalists and Patriots in 1770 Boston. This website provides information and materials to support the use of Mission 1 in your classroom.
Resources: Mission US Classroom Guide - http://www.mission-us.org/pages/classroom-guide
Mission 2 Flight for Freedom players take on the role of Lucy, a 14-year-old slave in Kentucky. As they navigate her escape and journey to Ohio, they discover that life in the “free” North is dangerous and difficult. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act brings disaster. Will Lucy ever truly be free?
Mission 3A Cheyenne Odyssey, the third interactive game in the Mission US series of digital role-playing games created to engage middle school students in the exploration of United States history. The game engages students as they take on the role of a 12-year-old Northern Cheyenne boy in the 1860s. As they play A Cheyenne Odyssey, students gain insight and understanding of westward expansion and its impact on America’s native peoples, the economy, the landscape and the environment.
Mission U.S. Depression. has created some excellent interactives and some bad ones. Their newest one is on the Depression.
Mission U.S. City of Immigrants players navigate New York’s Lower East Side as Lena, a young Jewish immigrant from Russia. Trying to save money to bring her parents to America, she works long hours in a factory for little money. Should she go on strike to protest conditions, and risk losing her job?
Outline Maps Games offers a free set of geography games. The site contains games about Africa, South America, Europe, the United States, and the world. There are two basic types of games on the site. The first type, "find by name," displays a state, country, or city name and you have to click the map to identify that place. The second type of game, "find by feature," highlights a location and you have to type the name of the highlighted location.
Who Am I? A History Mystery is a fun and challenging activity from the Smithsonian's The Price of Freedom online exhibit. Who Am I? presents players with six historical characters that they have to identify using the text and image clues provided. To solve the mystery players have to match the visual artifacts to each character.
Colonial America Games that teach and review colonial life
Minigames Developing Global and Cultural Awareness The League of Extraordinary Bloggers is a team of bloggers from China, japan, south Korea and Vietnam who are traveling through Asia to track down a criminal mastermind who has been stealing cultural landmarks and objects. Students can join these bloggers by taking on the role of Agent X.
Reading a Map (gr. 2-4)
GeoGames Helps students learn the location of countries More country identification games
8 Geo Games
That’s Your Right is a single or multiplayer digital card gamethat teaches students in middle school and high school about the first ten amendments of the US Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights. The game is integrated into the comprehensive multimedia Constitution curriculum at AnnenbergClassroom.org and is designed for play in the classroom. Students are dealt a hand of cards, with each card describing a different scenario that would positively or negatively affect their ability to leverage a relevant amendment from the Bill of Rights. If the amendment is correctly applied, students place an Amendment Token on the scenario card to win points, or conversely to take away points from their opponents. A series of videos about individual amendments reveals secret codes and upgrades to the in-game experience, allowing students to customize their game.
Seterra is a large collection of free geography quizzes. The there are dozens of quizzes covering everything from country identification to identifying physical geographic features like mountains, rivers, and seas. There are seven categories of quizzes arranged by continent. Seterra's quizzes are available in sixteen languages. Seterra's quizzes available as a free download for Windows computers. The games can also be played in an online version. If you download the quizzes you can keep track of your scores on your computer. The online version of the games do not allow you to keep track of your scores.
Geography Skills Geography Games Current Events Ancient Civilizations Environment U.S. History U.S. Government
World Geography Games features 51 geography games. The games are simple identification games in which students are shown the name of a country, state, city, or geographic feature and then have to click on the correct locations.
Reach the World produces good online games for geography students.
Mapping Games
GAME LINKS gr. 4 - 12 takes you to a document with a large list of hyperlinked map games. The games cover a wide variety of maps and topics, such as countries, oceans, capitals, lakes, rivers and mountains. The document will continually be updated as new games are released.
GameOn World is played in a manner similar to Kahoot. The teacher projects the game questions on a screen and students reply from their phones, tablets, or laptops. One of the convenient features of GameOn World is that you don't have to create an account in order to start playing fun geography and history games with your students. In GameOn World the teacher selects a game category (cities, places, and timeline are a few of the categories) and starts the game
Lewis and Clark 5-8 Travel along with the Corps of Discovery
Saints and Sinners is a new National Geographic game where players role-play being a Pilgrim. It’s has some elements of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” game, along with other “role-playing” features.
GeoGuessr is a fun map-based game where students get virtually “dropped” somewhere in the world, and must explore the landscape around them through Google Street View to determine where in the world they are. When they’ve determined where in the world they are, they click on the world map to make a guess. Students will be shown the actual location they are, as well as how far off they were from the correct location.
GeoSense (4-12) An online world geography interactive game that can be played with more than one player.
Interactive map site gr 5- 8 reviews the geographic features and regions of the United States and includes a game for students to locate individual states. Following are various interactive games that follow the history of the United States geographically, including information about the Native American tribes, the colonizing of North America, and the expansion of the United States.
Playing History (4-12) is a collection of more than 100 games related to topics in US and World History as well as civics and geography. The games come from a variety of sources across the web. Feedback on every game and suggestions for future additions are welcomed by the hosts of the site. Visitors to Playing History can search for games by using the tag cloud, by using the search box, or just browse through the entire list.
GeoGames from Reach the World feature an interactive map which students drag and drop onto different elements. The beginner level games asks has student place continents and the poles in the correct position. As the games levels progress students have to place countries and capitals in their proper positions. In the Build Planet Earthsection students have to place continents, oceans, mountains, and rivers in their proper positions.
Make a Map (gr. 3-6) Students follow online directions to create a storyteller's map and compare to the original.
Longitude and Latitude Games (gr. 3-6) A Collection of games
Get Lost Compass Game (gr. 3-6) Good practice to point out the north is not always up on a compass.
Geospy You take the role of a special agent, working against the clock as you try to locate various parts of the globe. As you play, you are given three different tasks (or games) to complete.
Mission US Grade 5 - Year 9
Mission US is an interactive adventure game designed to improve the understanding of American history. The first game in a planned series, Mission 1: “For Crown or Colony?” explores the reasons for Revolution through the eyes of both Loyalists and Patriots in 1770 Boston. This website provides information and materials to support the use of Mission 1 in your classroom.
Resources: Mission US Classroom Guide - http://www.mission-us.org/pages/classroom-guide
Mission 2 Flight for Freedom players take on the role of Lucy, a 14-year-old slave in Kentucky. As they navigate her escape and journey to Ohio, they discover that life in the “free” North is dangerous and difficult. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act brings disaster. Will Lucy ever truly be free?
Mission 3A Cheyenne Odyssey, the third interactive game in the Mission US series of digital role-playing games created to engage middle school students in the exploration of United States history. The game engages students as they take on the role of a 12-year-old Northern Cheyenne boy in the 1860s. As they play A Cheyenne Odyssey, students gain insight and understanding of westward expansion and its impact on America’s native peoples, the economy, the landscape and the environment.
Mission U.S. Depression. has created some excellent interactives and some bad ones. Their newest one is on the Depression.
Mission U.S. City of Immigrants players navigate New York’s Lower East Side as Lena, a young Jewish immigrant from Russia. Trying to save money to bring her parents to America, she works long hours in a factory for little money. Should she go on strike to protest conditions, and risk losing her job?
Outline Maps Games offers a free set of geography games. The site contains games about Africa, South America, Europe, the United States, and the world. There are two basic types of games on the site. The first type, "find by name," displays a state, country, or city name and you have to click the map to identify that place. The second type of game, "find by feature," highlights a location and you have to type the name of the highlighted location.
Who Am I? A History Mystery is a fun and challenging activity from the Smithsonian's The Price of Freedom online exhibit. Who Am I? presents players with six historical characters that they have to identify using the text and image clues provided. To solve the mystery players have to match the visual artifacts to each character.
Colonial America Games that teach and review colonial life
Minigames Developing Global and Cultural Awareness The League of Extraordinary Bloggers is a team of bloggers from China, japan, south Korea and Vietnam who are traveling through Asia to track down a criminal mastermind who has been stealing cultural landmarks and objects. Students can join these bloggers by taking on the role of Agent X.
Reading a Map (gr. 2-4)
GeoGames Helps students learn the location of countries More country identification games
8 Geo Games
That’s Your Right is a single or multiplayer digital card gamethat teaches students in middle school and high school about the first ten amendments of the US Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights. The game is integrated into the comprehensive multimedia Constitution curriculum at AnnenbergClassroom.org and is designed for play in the classroom. Students are dealt a hand of cards, with each card describing a different scenario that would positively or negatively affect their ability to leverage a relevant amendment from the Bill of Rights. If the amendment is correctly applied, students place an Amendment Token on the scenario card to win points, or conversely to take away points from their opponents. A series of videos about individual amendments reveals secret codes and upgrades to the in-game experience, allowing students to customize their game.
Seterra is a large collection of free geography quizzes. The there are dozens of quizzes covering everything from country identification to identifying physical geographic features like mountains, rivers, and seas. There are seven categories of quizzes arranged by continent. Seterra's quizzes are available in sixteen languages. Seterra's quizzes available as a free download for Windows computers. The games can also be played in an online version. If you download the quizzes you can keep track of your scores on your computer. The online version of the games do not allow you to keep track of your scores.
Middle and High School
Abraham Lincoln’s Crossroads gr 6- 12 is an educational game based on the traveling exhibition Lincoln: The Constitution & the Civil War, which debuted at the National Constitution Center in June 2005. It invites them to learn about Lincoln’s leadership by exploring the political choices he made. An animated Lincoln introduces a situation, asks for advice and prompts students to decide the issue for themselves, before learning the actual outcome. At the end of the game, students discover how frequently they predicted Lincoln’s actions. A Resources Page, keyed to each chapter of Abraham Lincoln’s Crossroads, provides links to relevant websites on Lincoln and the Civil War, permitting students to explore issues in more depth.Click Here to Access Free Gam
Playing History (4-12) is a collection of more than 100 games related to topics in US and World History as well as civics and geography. The games come from a variety of sources across the web. Feedback on every game and suggestions for future additions are welcomed by the hosts of the site. Visitors to Playing History can search for games by using the tag cloud, by using the search box, or just browse through the entire list.
Lewis and Clark 5-8 Travel along with the Corps of Discovery
Saints and Sinners is a new National Geographic game where players role-play being a Pilgrim. It’s has some elements of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” game, along with other “role-playing” features.
Mission US Grade 5 - Year 9
Mission US is an interactive adventure game designed to improve the understanding of American history. The first game in a planned series, Mission 1: “For Crown or Colony?” explores the reasons for Revolution through the eyes of both Loyalists and Patriots in 1770 Boston. This website provides information and materials to support the use of Mission 1 in your classroom.
Resources: Mission US Classroom Guide - http://www.mission-us.org/pages/classroom-guide
Mission 2 Flight for Freedom players take on the role of Lucy, a 14-year-old slave in Kentucky. As they navigate her escape and journey to Ohio, they discover that life in the “free” North is dangerous and difficult. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act brings disaster. Will Lucy ever truly be free?
Mission 3A Cheyenne Odyssey, the third interactive game in the Mission US series of digital role-playing games created to engage middle school students in the exploration of United States history. The game engages students as they take on the role of a 12-year-old Northern Cheyenne boy in the 1860s. As they play A Cheyenne Odyssey, students gain insight and understanding of westward expansion and its impact on America’s native peoples, the economy, the landscape and the environment.
Mission U.S. Depression. has created some excellent interactives and some bad ones. Their newest one is on the Depression.
Mission U.S. City of Immigrants players navigate New York’s Lower East Side as Lena, a young Jewish immigrant from Russia. Trying to save money to bring her parents to America, she works long hours in a factory for little money. Should she go on strike to protest conditions, and risk losing her job?
PlayBrighter (gr. 1-8) A user starts out by creating a "Peeble" (avatar), then going on a variety of educational missions. These missions focus on different subject areas such as: Geography, Economics, History, and more. As a person completes a mission more and more of them become "unlocked" and they are able to purchase items/buildings.
The Redistricting Game (gr. 8 - 12) is designed to educate, engage, and empower citizens around the issue of political redistricting.
Mapping Games
GameOn World is played in a manner similar to Kahoot. The teacher projects the game questions on a screen and students reply from their phones, tablets, or laptops. One of the convenient features of GameOn World is that you don't have to create an account in order to start playing fun geography and history games with your students. In GameOn World the teacher selects a game category (cities, places, and timeline are a few of the categories) and starts the game
Outline Maps Games offers a free set of geography games. The site contains games about Africa, South America, Europe, the United States, and the world. There are two basic types of games on the site. The first type, "find by name," displays a state, country, or city name and you have to click the map to identify that place. The second type of game, "find by feature," highlights a location and you have to type the name of the highlighted location.
Arising from Injustice, an alternate reality game focused on the Japanese experience of internment camps during World War II, students are asked to investigate why Dr. Alice Sasaki had been found unconscious in her lab. To wake her from her coma, players must access her high-tech Memory History Cognition device and reconstruct her memories as a Japanese American in the 1940s. The modular, web-based narrative relates the story of the Japanese Americans with eclectic historical documents and media, including pictures, letters, journals, videos, and audio. Players progress from Pearl Harbor to postwar resettlement by solving puzzles, following clues, carrying out assignments, and sharing their findings on a group discussion board. Players evaluate and analyze primary documents to determine the social conditions that precipitated prejudice and discrimination against Japanese Americans. They also hone their media literacy skills by synthesizing their learning in collaborative media projectswhere they support their research with primary sources. All of these fit with Common Core standards. One of the most important lessons of the game is empathy. The game puts players in a situated learning environment where they must interact and empathize with various characters in order to succeed. To request this educational alternate reality game for your school, contact GameTrain Learning, the developer of Arising from Injustice.
Click Here for More Information About AR Game
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.
Historical Scene Investigation The Historical Scene Investigation Project (HSI) was designed for social studies teachers who need a strong pedagogical mechanism for bringing primary sources into their classroom.
Who Am I? A History Mystery is a fun and challenging activity from the Smithsonian's The Price of Freedom online exhibit. Who Am I? presents players with six historical characters that they have to identify using the text and image clues provided. To solve the mystery players have to match the visual artifacts to each character.
That’s Your Right is a single or multiplayer digital card gamethat teaches students in middle school and high school about the first ten amendments of the US Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights. The game is integrated into the comprehensive multimedia Constitution curriculum at AnnenbergClassroom.org and is designed for play in the classroom. Students are dealt a hand of cards, with each card describing a different scenario that would positively or negatively affect their ability to leverage a relevant amendment from the Bill of Rights. If the amendment is correctly applied, students place an Amendment Token on the scenario card to win points, or conversely to take away points from their opponents. A series of videos about individual amendments reveals secret codes and upgrades to the in-game experience, allowing students to customize their game.
Interactive map site gr 5- 8 reviews the geographic features and regions of the United States and includes a game for students to locate individual states. Following are various interactive games that follow the history of the United States geographically, including information about the Native American tribes, the colonizing of North America, and the expansion of the United States.
Saints and Sinners is a new National Geographic game where players role-play being a Pilgrim. It’s has some elements of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” game, along with other“role-playing” features.
Allies and Aliens: A Mission in Critical Thinking
In Allies and Aliens students become agents on an intergalactic mission for earth. As students interact with alien characters and visit websites on the “Galactic Web”, they come across varying degrees of prejudice and discrimination. These interactions help students to understand how such
ARTé: Mecenas, in which students assume the role of a Medici and balance relationships with powerful city–states, merchant factions, and the Catholic Church or risk excommunication, exile, and bankruptcy. The game assesses the likelihood that students can recognize and match works of art but also understand the role of art given societal norms and the overall relevance to the people and policies of the period.
The Curfew
The Curfew is an adventure web-game. Set in 2027 in the heart of an authoritarian security state, The Curfew could be described as a miniature Canterbury Tales set in a not-so-distant future, where citizens must abide by government security measures and 'sub citizens' are placed under curfew at night. The player must navigate this complex political world and engage with the characters they meet along the way to work out who they should trust in order to gain freedom. Choose wisely and you could change the course of history. Choose poorly, and it'll be changed for you.
Sorting Out Notions About Race
"What is race?" teacher Jill Spain asked her sixth-graders at the beginning of their Holocaust unit. Not surprisingly, they found it hard to answer the question, and Spain saw that she needed to change course. "I flipped on my Smart Board and brought up the section called 'Sorting People'. It provides photos of 20 people. The objective is to look at them and sort them into racial categories. ... All 22 of my students were confident that they could complete this task with ease. What happened next was both shocking and powerful."
September 12th: A Toy World: The rules are simple: you can choose to shoot rockets at terrorists, or not. But be warned, missing civilians is virtually impossible. The purpose of this newsgame is to visually prove that the U.S. War on Terror is destined to failure, as every civilian killed results in dozens of terrorists created. It has been shown all over the world as a teaching tool against violence.
PeaceMaker is a serious game where you play as either government officials from Palestine, or Israel. Then, you make the discussions that decides whether your country fails or prospers.
Fake It To Make It is an online game about fake news
Minigames Developing Global and Cultural Awareness The League of Extraordinary Bloggers is a team of bloggers from China, japan, south Korea and Vietnam who are traveling through Asia to track down a criminal mastermind who has been stealing cultural landmarks and objects. Students can join these bloggers by taking on the role of Agent X.
GeoSense (4-12) An online world geography interactive game that can be played with more than one player.
PlayBrighter (gr. 1-8) A user starts out by creating a "Peeble" (avatar), then going on a variety of educational missions. These missions focus on different subject areas such as: Geography, Economics, History, and more. As a person completes a mission more and more of them become "unlocked" and they are able to purchase items/buildings.
Econ Ed Link hosts hundreds of lesson plans and interactive games for teaching students about a wide range of topics in economics. Teachers can search the lesson plan index by grade level, concept, standard, or length of lesson (one class period vs. multiple class periods). Most of the lessons attempt to provide "real world" context.
The interactive section of Econ Ed Link offers four pages of videos and games. The videos and games can be used as stand-alone activities or as part of lesson plan. For example, interactive game on developing good credit habits. Developing Good Credit Habits is a game appropriate for middle school and high school students. Students earn money by correctly answering questions about credit scores, interest rates, and spending practices. The purpose of the game is to purchase items and pay expenses without damaging your credit score.
GeoGuessr is a fun map-based game where students get virtually “dropped” somewhere in the world, and must explore the landscape around them through Google Street View to determine where in the world they are. When they’ve determined where in the world they are, they click on the world map to make a guess. Students will be shown the actual location they are, as well as how far off they were from the correct location.
Abraham Lincoln’s Crossroads gr 6- 12 is an educational game based on the traveling exhibition Lincoln: The Constitution & the Civil War, which debuted at the National Constitution Center in June 2005. It invites them to learn about Lincoln’s leadership by exploring the political choices he made. An animated Lincoln introduces a situation, asks for advice and prompts students to decide the issue for themselves, before learning the actual outcome. At the end of the game, students discover how frequently they predicted Lincoln’s actions. A Resources Page, keyed to each chapter of Abraham Lincoln’s Crossroads, provides links to relevant websites on Lincoln and the Civil War, permitting students to explore issues in more depth.Click Here to Access Free Gam
Playing History (4-12) is a collection of more than 100 games related to topics in US and World History as well as civics and geography. The games come from a variety of sources across the web. Feedback on every game and suggestions for future additions are welcomed by the hosts of the site. Visitors to Playing History can search for games by using the tag cloud, by using the search box, or just browse through the entire list.
Lewis and Clark 5-8 Travel along with the Corps of Discovery
Saints and Sinners is a new National Geographic game where players role-play being a Pilgrim. It’s has some elements of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” game, along with other “role-playing” features.
Mission US Grade 5 - Year 9
Mission US is an interactive adventure game designed to improve the understanding of American history. The first game in a planned series, Mission 1: “For Crown or Colony?” explores the reasons for Revolution through the eyes of both Loyalists and Patriots in 1770 Boston. This website provides information and materials to support the use of Mission 1 in your classroom.
Resources: Mission US Classroom Guide - http://www.mission-us.org/pages/classroom-guide
Mission 2 Flight for Freedom players take on the role of Lucy, a 14-year-old slave in Kentucky. As they navigate her escape and journey to Ohio, they discover that life in the “free” North is dangerous and difficult. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act brings disaster. Will Lucy ever truly be free?
Mission 3A Cheyenne Odyssey, the third interactive game in the Mission US series of digital role-playing games created to engage middle school students in the exploration of United States history. The game engages students as they take on the role of a 12-year-old Northern Cheyenne boy in the 1860s. As they play A Cheyenne Odyssey, students gain insight and understanding of westward expansion and its impact on America’s native peoples, the economy, the landscape and the environment.
Mission U.S. Depression. has created some excellent interactives and some bad ones. Their newest one is on the Depression.
Mission U.S. City of Immigrants players navigate New York’s Lower East Side as Lena, a young Jewish immigrant from Russia. Trying to save money to bring her parents to America, she works long hours in a factory for little money. Should she go on strike to protest conditions, and risk losing her job?
PlayBrighter (gr. 1-8) A user starts out by creating a "Peeble" (avatar), then going on a variety of educational missions. These missions focus on different subject areas such as: Geography, Economics, History, and more. As a person completes a mission more and more of them become "unlocked" and they are able to purchase items/buildings.
The Redistricting Game (gr. 8 - 12) is designed to educate, engage, and empower citizens around the issue of political redistricting.
Mapping Games
GameOn World is played in a manner similar to Kahoot. The teacher projects the game questions on a screen and students reply from their phones, tablets, or laptops. One of the convenient features of GameOn World is that you don't have to create an account in order to start playing fun geography and history games with your students. In GameOn World the teacher selects a game category (cities, places, and timeline are a few of the categories) and starts the game
Outline Maps Games offers a free set of geography games. The site contains games about Africa, South America, Europe, the United States, and the world. There are two basic types of games on the site. The first type, "find by name," displays a state, country, or city name and you have to click the map to identify that place. The second type of game, "find by feature," highlights a location and you have to type the name of the highlighted location.
Arising from Injustice, an alternate reality game focused on the Japanese experience of internment camps during World War II, students are asked to investigate why Dr. Alice Sasaki had been found unconscious in her lab. To wake her from her coma, players must access her high-tech Memory History Cognition device and reconstruct her memories as a Japanese American in the 1940s. The modular, web-based narrative relates the story of the Japanese Americans with eclectic historical documents and media, including pictures, letters, journals, videos, and audio. Players progress from Pearl Harbor to postwar resettlement by solving puzzles, following clues, carrying out assignments, and sharing their findings on a group discussion board. Players evaluate and analyze primary documents to determine the social conditions that precipitated prejudice and discrimination against Japanese Americans. They also hone their media literacy skills by synthesizing their learning in collaborative media projectswhere they support their research with primary sources. All of these fit with Common Core standards. One of the most important lessons of the game is empathy. The game puts players in a situated learning environment where they must interact and empathize with various characters in order to succeed. To request this educational alternate reality game for your school, contact GameTrain Learning, the developer of Arising from Injustice.
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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.
Historical Scene Investigation The Historical Scene Investigation Project (HSI) was designed for social studies teachers who need a strong pedagogical mechanism for bringing primary sources into their classroom.
Who Am I? A History Mystery is a fun and challenging activity from the Smithsonian's The Price of Freedom online exhibit. Who Am I? presents players with six historical characters that they have to identify using the text and image clues provided. To solve the mystery players have to match the visual artifacts to each character.
That’s Your Right is a single or multiplayer digital card gamethat teaches students in middle school and high school about the first ten amendments of the US Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights. The game is integrated into the comprehensive multimedia Constitution curriculum at AnnenbergClassroom.org and is designed for play in the classroom. Students are dealt a hand of cards, with each card describing a different scenario that would positively or negatively affect their ability to leverage a relevant amendment from the Bill of Rights. If the amendment is correctly applied, students place an Amendment Token on the scenario card to win points, or conversely to take away points from their opponents. A series of videos about individual amendments reveals secret codes and upgrades to the in-game experience, allowing students to customize their game.
Interactive map site gr 5- 8 reviews the geographic features and regions of the United States and includes a game for students to locate individual states. Following are various interactive games that follow the history of the United States geographically, including information about the Native American tribes, the colonizing of North America, and the expansion of the United States.
Saints and Sinners is a new National Geographic game where players role-play being a Pilgrim. It’s has some elements of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” game, along with other“role-playing” features.
Allies and Aliens: A Mission in Critical Thinking
In Allies and Aliens students become agents on an intergalactic mission for earth. As students interact with alien characters and visit websites on the “Galactic Web”, they come across varying degrees of prejudice and discrimination. These interactions help students to understand how such
ARTé: Mecenas, in which students assume the role of a Medici and balance relationships with powerful city–states, merchant factions, and the Catholic Church or risk excommunication, exile, and bankruptcy. The game assesses the likelihood that students can recognize and match works of art but also understand the role of art given societal norms and the overall relevance to the people and policies of the period.
The Curfew
The Curfew is an adventure web-game. Set in 2027 in the heart of an authoritarian security state, The Curfew could be described as a miniature Canterbury Tales set in a not-so-distant future, where citizens must abide by government security measures and 'sub citizens' are placed under curfew at night. The player must navigate this complex political world and engage with the characters they meet along the way to work out who they should trust in order to gain freedom. Choose wisely and you could change the course of history. Choose poorly, and it'll be changed for you.
Sorting Out Notions About Race
"What is race?" teacher Jill Spain asked her sixth-graders at the beginning of their Holocaust unit. Not surprisingly, they found it hard to answer the question, and Spain saw that she needed to change course. "I flipped on my Smart Board and brought up the section called 'Sorting People'. It provides photos of 20 people. The objective is to look at them and sort them into racial categories. ... All 22 of my students were confident that they could complete this task with ease. What happened next was both shocking and powerful."
September 12th: A Toy World: The rules are simple: you can choose to shoot rockets at terrorists, or not. But be warned, missing civilians is virtually impossible. The purpose of this newsgame is to visually prove that the U.S. War on Terror is destined to failure, as every civilian killed results in dozens of terrorists created. It has been shown all over the world as a teaching tool against violence.
PeaceMaker is a serious game where you play as either government officials from Palestine, or Israel. Then, you make the discussions that decides whether your country fails or prospers.
Fake It To Make It is an online game about fake news
Minigames Developing Global and Cultural Awareness The League of Extraordinary Bloggers is a team of bloggers from China, japan, south Korea and Vietnam who are traveling through Asia to track down a criminal mastermind who has been stealing cultural landmarks and objects. Students can join these bloggers by taking on the role of Agent X.
GeoSense (4-12) An online world geography interactive game that can be played with more than one player.
PlayBrighter (gr. 1-8) A user starts out by creating a "Peeble" (avatar), then going on a variety of educational missions. These missions focus on different subject areas such as: Geography, Economics, History, and more. As a person completes a mission more and more of them become "unlocked" and they are able to purchase items/buildings.
Econ Ed Link hosts hundreds of lesson plans and interactive games for teaching students about a wide range of topics in economics. Teachers can search the lesson plan index by grade level, concept, standard, or length of lesson (one class period vs. multiple class periods). Most of the lessons attempt to provide "real world" context.
The interactive section of Econ Ed Link offers four pages of videos and games. The videos and games can be used as stand-alone activities or as part of lesson plan. For example, interactive game on developing good credit habits. Developing Good Credit Habits is a game appropriate for middle school and high school students. Students earn money by correctly answering questions about credit scores, interest rates, and spending practices. The purpose of the game is to purchase items and pay expenses without damaging your credit score.
GeoGuessr is a fun map-based game where students get virtually “dropped” somewhere in the world, and must explore the landscape around them through Google Street View to determine where in the world they are. When they’ve determined where in the world they are, they click on the world map to make a guess. Students will be shown the actual location they are, as well as how far off they were from the correct location.