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.
Show Me has a big collection of online games from various United Kingdom museums.
Ology from the American Museum of Natural History has its own large collection of games.
WideOpenSchool's social studies section features a wide variety of educational materials to use with your students in and outside class. These include free history games, lessons, worksheets, apps, videos, and activities. You can browse through these resources by grade (preschool-12) or by genre such as activity, article/Ebook, audio, lesson, video, website/app, and/or workshee
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
Wiki History Game - Online game where you drag events into order on a timeline, with a new event added after each turn.
History Simulation, as its name indicates, is an educational platform that offers a wide variety of history simulations, games, educational activities, and history presentations to use in your history class.
Digital History Another great resource of educational materials to help make teaching history more engaging.Among these materials include classroom handouts, lesson plans, quizzes, writing guides, maps, timelines, posters, digital stories, and many more.
Digital Archive: International History Declassified
"The Digital Archive is a resource where students, researchers and specialists can access once-secret documents from governments and organizations all over the world. Constructed and maintained by the Wilson Center’s History and Public Policy Program, the Digital Archive contains newly declassified historical materials from archives around the world—much of it in translation and including diplomatic cables, high level correspondence, meeting minutes and more. The historical documents presented in the ever-expanding Digital Archive provide fresh, unprecedented insights into recent international history. By making new sources available and easily accessible, the Digital Archive serves to deepen and enrich international scholarship, history education, and public policy debate on important global issues and challenges."
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.
Naraview – A Good Way to Challenge Students to Make Connections Between Topics is from Richard Byrne.
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.
Show Me has a big collection of online games from various United Kingdom museums.
Ology from the American Museum of Natural History has its own large collection of games.
WideOpenSchool's social studies section features a wide variety of educational materials to use with your students in and outside class. These include free history games, lessons, worksheets, apps, videos, and activities. You can browse through these resources by grade (preschool-12) or by genre such as activity, article/Ebook, audio, lesson, video, website/app, and/or workshee
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
Wiki History Game - Online game where you drag events into order on a timeline, with a new event added after each turn.
History Simulation, as its name indicates, is an educational platform that offers a wide variety of history simulations, games, educational activities, and history presentations to use in your history class.
Digital History Another great resource of educational materials to help make teaching history more engaging.Among these materials include classroom handouts, lesson plans, quizzes, writing guides, maps, timelines, posters, digital stories, and many more.
Digital Archive: International History Declassified
"The Digital Archive is a resource where students, researchers and specialists can access once-secret documents from governments and organizations all over the world. Constructed and maintained by the Wilson Center’s History and Public Policy Program, the Digital Archive contains newly declassified historical materials from archives around the world—much of it in translation and including diplomatic cables, high level correspondence, meeting minutes and more. The historical documents presented in the ever-expanding Digital Archive provide fresh, unprecedented insights into recent international history. By making new sources available and easily accessible, the Digital Archive serves to deepen and enrich international scholarship, history education, and public policy debate on important global issues and challenges."
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.
Naraview – A Good Way to Challenge Students to Make Connections Between Topics is from Richard Byrne.
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.
City Guesser gives you the option of first choosing the world, or different areas of the word, and then shows you videos of a location. You guess where on a map, and then you’re shown how close you were to the correct answer. One intriguing option is just having it show you monuments from throughout the world.
Arts, Culture, and Geography Games Games on the Google Arts & Culture site Play with Arts & Culture offers more than a dozen interactive games for students to play to test their knowledge and to learn about the connections between art, culture, and geography. The collection of games includes things like jigsaw puzzles to reassemble famous works of art, timeline-based games about cultural events, crosswords, online coloring activities, and location identification games. Some of the games can be played collaboratively and all of the games can be shared directly into Google Classroom as announcements and or assignments. Watch Art, Culture, and Geography Games to learn more about how to play the games in Play with Arts & Culture. www.freetech4teachers.com
GeoQuiz lets you name or identify countries. It’s simple, but has the neat feature of letting you compete against other players. It’s particularly nice that you can create your own virtual rooms and only play with your friends classmates.
Google unveiled an online video called called The Descent of the Serpent Here’s how they describe it: The game involves retrieving the lost objects and returning them to Chichen Itza in time for the solar equinox. That’s when the sun casts a shadow on the carvings in a way that resembles a snake descending the monument’s steps — which inspires the game’s name. As part of the challenge, players are invited to learn surprising, impressive and interesting aspects about ancient Mesoamerican cultures, and face mythological figures who’ll test the knowledge they’ve collected throughout the adventure.
Worlde shows you an outline of the country, and then you get six guesses to write it correctly. After each guess, you’re given hints to the correct answer, including how far your guess was from it, what direction from your guess can you find the right country, and how far in kilometers the right answer is from your guess.
Be George Washington: It’s Your Turn To Lead is an online choose-your-own-adventure game from Mount Vernon. Players can choose various well-know scenarios where Washington had to deal with crises. Be aware that the introductions to each of those scenarios is probably a bit longer than it has to be, but they are still engaging. It can be a one-player game, or a “private” game can easily be set up just for your students.
Reach the World produces good online games for geography students.
Discovering the Ancient Pyramids Adventure Students use Google Maps Treks—which provide a 360-degree view of the ancient structures—to go on a quest inside the Great Pyramid and solve a mystery while they explore
Seterra has long been a “go-to” Geography site, with zillions of engaging games and quizzes. They’ve recently added a new fabulous feature to their interactives – now, anyone – without registering – can turn any of their games/quizzes into custom ones and share its unique url address. All you have to do is click on the “Create Custom Quiz” link at the top of each of their interactives. What a great assignment for students to do.
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.
Mission US: No Turning Back. This mission will immerse your students in the 1960s civil rights movement as they experience it through the eyes of a fictional teen in Mississippi.
Mission US Japanese-American Internment (Imprisonment) The Civil Rights Movement, and indigenous Americans.
Wiki History Game - Online game where you drag events into order on a timeline, with a new event added after each turn.
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?
Port of Entry: Immigration (gr. 4 - 8 ) This is a game in which the viewer assumes the role of historical detective, searching for clues in photographs and eyewitness accounts about immigrant life in America.
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
Plimoth Plantation’s You Are the Historian simulation. (gr. 4 - 6) It’s an online tool that asks kids to answer a very simple question – what really happened at the first Thanksgiving. Using evidence and video clips from experts, elementary students learn to make a claim and create a final product using evidence that supports their answer.
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.
City Guesser gives you the option of first choosing the world, or different areas of the word, and then shows you videos of a location. You guess where on a map, and then you’re shown how close you were to the correct answer. One intriguing option is just having it show you monuments from throughout the world.
Arts, Culture, and Geography Games Games on the Google Arts & Culture site Play with Arts & Culture offers more than a dozen interactive games for students to play to test their knowledge and to learn about the connections between art, culture, and geography. The collection of games includes things like jigsaw puzzles to reassemble famous works of art, timeline-based games about cultural events, crosswords, online coloring activities, and location identification games. Some of the games can be played collaboratively and all of the games can be shared directly into Google Classroom as announcements and or assignments. Watch Art, Culture, and Geography Games to learn more about how to play the games in Play with Arts & Culture. www.freetech4teachers.com
GeoQuiz lets you name or identify countries. It’s simple, but has the neat feature of letting you compete against other players. It’s particularly nice that you can create your own virtual rooms and only play with your friends classmates.
Google unveiled an online video called called The Descent of the Serpent Here’s how they describe it: The game involves retrieving the lost objects and returning them to Chichen Itza in time for the solar equinox. That’s when the sun casts a shadow on the carvings in a way that resembles a snake descending the monument’s steps — which inspires the game’s name. As part of the challenge, players are invited to learn surprising, impressive and interesting aspects about ancient Mesoamerican cultures, and face mythological figures who’ll test the knowledge they’ve collected throughout the adventure.
Worlde shows you an outline of the country, and then you get six guesses to write it correctly. After each guess, you’re given hints to the correct answer, including how far your guess was from it, what direction from your guess can you find the right country, and how far in kilometers the right answer is from your guess.
Be George Washington: It’s Your Turn To Lead is an online choose-your-own-adventure game from Mount Vernon. Players can choose various well-know scenarios where Washington had to deal with crises. Be aware that the introductions to each of those scenarios is probably a bit longer than it has to be, but they are still engaging. It can be a one-player game, or a “private” game can easily be set up just for your students.
Reach the World produces good online games for geography students.
Discovering the Ancient Pyramids Adventure Students use Google Maps Treks—which provide a 360-degree view of the ancient structures—to go on a quest inside the Great Pyramid and solve a mystery while they explore
Seterra has long been a “go-to” Geography site, with zillions of engaging games and quizzes. They’ve recently added a new fabulous feature to their interactives – now, anyone – without registering – can turn any of their games/quizzes into custom ones and share its unique url address. All you have to do is click on the “Create Custom Quiz” link at the top of each of their interactives. What a great assignment for students to do.
Mapping Games
- The Mind-Blowing Map Quiz is designed to help students understand how Mercator projection maps distort our view of the world. It does this by asking relational questions like "how much bigger is Australia than Alaska?" and "how close are Russia and the United States?" A few fun facts are thrown into the explanations of each answer. www.freetech4teachers.com
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.
Mission US: No Turning Back. This mission will immerse your students in the 1960s civil rights movement as they experience it through the eyes of a fictional teen in Mississippi.
Mission US Japanese-American Internment (Imprisonment) The Civil Rights Movement, and indigenous Americans.
Wiki History Game - Online game where you drag events into order on a timeline, with a new event added after each turn.
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?
Port of Entry: Immigration (gr. 4 - 8 ) This is a game in which the viewer assumes the role of historical detective, searching for clues in photographs and eyewitness accounts about immigrant life in America.
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
Plimoth Plantation’s You Are the Historian simulation. (gr. 4 - 6) It’s an online tool that asks kids to answer a very simple question – what really happened at the first Thanksgiving. Using evidence and video clips from experts, elementary students learn to make a claim and create a final product using evidence that supports their answer.
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 Game
Mission US: No Turning Back. This mission will immerse your students in the 1960s civil rights movement as they experience it through the eyes of a fictional teen in Mississippi.
Be George Washington: It’s Your Turn To Lead is an online choose-your-own-adventure game from Mount Vernon. Players can choose various well-know scenarios where Washington had to deal with crises. Be aware that the introductions to each of those scenarios is probably a bit longer than it has to be, but they are still engaging. It can be a one-player game, or a “private” game can easily be set up just for your students.
FlashbackThe NY Times has just unveiled a new game called Flashback, where you have to put eight historical events in chronological order.
Broken Co-Worker is an interesting “Choose Your Own Adventure” game where players are in the role of a bullied worker. It appears to be classroom appropriate, but I did not explore all the alternatives available.
Depression Quest is an interactive text fiction game (or choose your own adventure) where the player plays the part of someone who is suffering from depression.
Worlde shows you an outline of the country, and then you get six guesses to write it correctly. After each guess, you’re given hints to the correct answer, including how far your guess was from it, what direction from your guess can you find the right country, and how far in kilometers the right answer is from your guess.
RISE OF ANCIENT EGYPT
Visual Crosswords This game enables students to learn more about arts and culture through unexpected pairings. For instance, to learn more about Art Movements, students are provided with two columns and are asked to drag artworks to boxes anywhere they match the labels. If they are not familiar with a particular artwork they can click on Learn More to read about it on Google Arts and Culture.
Engaging Congress, a free interactive game that uses primary source documents to explore the workings of American government and the challenges the government faces in contemporary society. The app-based game is available to middle school and high school government, history, language arts, and social studies programs as an engaging tool for teaching the basic tenets of representative government, using documents and materials from the Library of Congress and other sources. The game features five thematic stories: “Fair Is Not Always Equal,” about federalism; “Laws and Sausages,” about legislation; “Vote Early, Vote Often,” about voting rights and elections; “A Balancing Act,” about the federal budget; and “More Equal Than Others,” about money and influence in politics.
Naraview – A Good Way to Challenge Students to Make Connections Between Topics is from Richard Byrne.
Mock Auctions. Pretending to Flee Captors. Do Simulations Have a Place in Lessons on Slavery? is from Ed Week.
Mission 1.5 is a simulation game from the United Nations that lets you help deal with global warming.
Wiki History Game - Online game where you drag events into order on a timeline, with a new event added after each turn.
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.
Discovering the Ancient Pyramids Adventure Students use Google Maps Treks—which provide a 360-degree view of the ancient structures—to go on a quest inside the Great Pyramid and solve a mystery while they explore
Arts, Culture, and Geography Games Games on the Google Arts & Culture site Play with Arts & Culture offers more than a dozen interactive games for students to play to test their knowledge and to learn about the connections between art, culture, and geography. The collection of games includes things like jigsaw puzzles to reassemble famous works of art, timeline-based games about cultural events, crosswords, online coloring activities, and location identification games. Some of the games can be played collaboratively and all of the games can be shared directly into Google Classroom as announcements and or assignments. Watch Art, Culture, and Geography Games to learn more about how to play the games in Play with Arts & Culture. www.freetech4teachers.com
Walden, a game is a first-person exploration of the life of American philosopher Henry David Thoreau during his experiment in self-reliant living at Walden Pond. The game begins in the summer of 1845 when Thoreau moved to the Pond and built his cabin there. Players follow in his footsteps, surviving in the woods by finding food and fuel and maintaining their shelter and clothing. The game follows the loose narrative of Thoreau’s first year in the woods, with each season having its own challenges for survival and possibilities for inspiration.
HistorySimulations.com these lesson activities, students are assigned roles as world leaders and given objectives that mirror the national interests of those countries. Guided by these objectives, students conduct diplomacy, negotiate with other countries and develop strategies. 666 In these lesson activities, students are assigned roles as world leaders and given objectives that mirror the national interests of those countries. Guided by these objectives, students conduct diplomacy, negotiate with other countries and develop strategies. In these lesson activities, students are assigned roles as world leaders and given objectives that mirror the national interests of those countries. Guided by these objectives, students conduct diplomacy, negotiate with other countries and develop strategies. In these lesson activities, students are assigned roles as world leaders and given objectives that mirror the national interests of those countries. Guided by these objectives, students conduct diplomacy, negotiate with other countries and develop strategies. Created by a high school history teacher. Inexpensive Most about $20
League of Extraordinary Bloggers fromn Boston Children’s Museumis In the game, a criminal mastermind known as the FOX has been stealing important cultural landmarks and objects all across China, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam. Searches for him have proved fruitless, since his identity is a mystery. What the FOX doesn’t know is that teen bloggers from these four Asian countries have teamed up to bring him to justice. Students meet the League of Extraordinary Bloggers, also known as the LXB. They become Agent X, honorary fifth member of the LXB, and will help the four other bloggers track down the FOX. During gameplay, they will fly to each LXB member’s home country to investigate clues left behind by the FOX. Working together, they will learn about Asia and assemble clues from each country to track down this criminal mastermind. Students can play the game via the web on a mobile device, or they can download the iOS app.
Barbarian Battlefield A game one social science teacher created to teach the history of ancient Rome
Seterra has long been a “go-to” Geography site, with zillions of engaging games and quizzes. They’ve recently added a new fabulous feature to their interactives – now, anyone – without registering – can turn any of their games/quizzes into custom ones and share its unique url address. All you have to do is click on the “Create Custom Quiz” link at the top of each of their interactives. What a great assignment for students to do.
Lewis and Clark 5-8 Travel along with the Corps of Discovery
Bury Me, My Love The story of a young woman escaping war-torn Syria
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 aged by High Schol 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 Detective: Bavaria gr 9-12 is an engaging and fun way for students to build skills in data interpretation. Students must learn to discriminate between types of data, understand the different types of sources, and develop the ability to determine the implications of information. All while attempting to unravel the mysteries surrounding the village of Ingolstadt and Frankenstein Biomedical Lab in this modern day take on Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein.
The Redistricting Game (gr. 8 - 12) is designed to educate, engage, and empower citizens around the issue of political redistricting.
Cantor’s World game educates people about the Inclusive Wealth Index (IWI) and the way it complements other indices. In the game, players experiment with policy choices and experience firsthand the tug-of-war between short-term results and long-term sustainability. Participants play the role of the sole architect of a country and decide the specific targets for their respective countries.
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
Geo Artwork from Google Arts & Culture. Geo Artwork is a game in which you view an image of an artwork and then have to guess where in the world that artwork belongs. There are categories for visual arts, sculpture, textiles, books, and places. The places category is based on Google Street View imagery of places associated with or featuring an art work. Geo Artwork is played by looking at the image and then placing a pin on a map to guess at the answer. Once the pin is placed you're shown how close or far you were from the correct answer. After viewing the accuracy of your guess you can click through to learn more about the artwork. Watch short video to learn how to play Geo Artwork. www.freetech4teachers.com
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
Cards Against Humanity describes their game:In Cards Against Calamity, you take on the role of mayor of a small coastal town. You must balance the needs of various stakeholder groups, from fishermen to tourists and small business owners, while protecting the town from job loss, pollution, hurricanes, and hipsters. Do you have what it takes?
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
Cranky Uncle is a not-very-splashy, but effective, information literacy game that you can play in a browser or download as an app. Players learn various common strategies that can be used to manipulate consumers of 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 Game
Mission US: No Turning Back. This mission will immerse your students in the 1960s civil rights movement as they experience it through the eyes of a fictional teen in Mississippi.
Be George Washington: It’s Your Turn To Lead is an online choose-your-own-adventure game from Mount Vernon. Players can choose various well-know scenarios where Washington had to deal with crises. Be aware that the introductions to each of those scenarios is probably a bit longer than it has to be, but they are still engaging. It can be a one-player game, or a “private” game can easily be set up just for your students.
FlashbackThe NY Times has just unveiled a new game called Flashback, where you have to put eight historical events in chronological order.
Broken Co-Worker is an interesting “Choose Your Own Adventure” game where players are in the role of a bullied worker. It appears to be classroom appropriate, but I did not explore all the alternatives available.
Depression Quest is an interactive text fiction game (or choose your own adventure) where the player plays the part of someone who is suffering from depression.
Worlde shows you an outline of the country, and then you get six guesses to write it correctly. After each guess, you’re given hints to the correct answer, including how far your guess was from it, what direction from your guess can you find the right country, and how far in kilometers the right answer is from your guess.
RISE OF ANCIENT EGYPT
Visual Crosswords This game enables students to learn more about arts and culture through unexpected pairings. For instance, to learn more about Art Movements, students are provided with two columns and are asked to drag artworks to boxes anywhere they match the labels. If they are not familiar with a particular artwork they can click on Learn More to read about it on Google Arts and Culture.
Engaging Congress, a free interactive game that uses primary source documents to explore the workings of American government and the challenges the government faces in contemporary society. The app-based game is available to middle school and high school government, history, language arts, and social studies programs as an engaging tool for teaching the basic tenets of representative government, using documents and materials from the Library of Congress and other sources. The game features five thematic stories: “Fair Is Not Always Equal,” about federalism; “Laws and Sausages,” about legislation; “Vote Early, Vote Often,” about voting rights and elections; “A Balancing Act,” about the federal budget; and “More Equal Than Others,” about money and influence in politics.
Naraview – A Good Way to Challenge Students to Make Connections Between Topics is from Richard Byrne.
Mock Auctions. Pretending to Flee Captors. Do Simulations Have a Place in Lessons on Slavery? is from Ed Week.
Mission 1.5 is a simulation game from the United Nations that lets you help deal with global warming.
Wiki History Game - Online game where you drag events into order on a timeline, with a new event added after each turn.
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.
Discovering the Ancient Pyramids Adventure Students use Google Maps Treks—which provide a 360-degree view of the ancient structures—to go on a quest inside the Great Pyramid and solve a mystery while they explore
Arts, Culture, and Geography Games Games on the Google Arts & Culture site Play with Arts & Culture offers more than a dozen interactive games for students to play to test their knowledge and to learn about the connections between art, culture, and geography. The collection of games includes things like jigsaw puzzles to reassemble famous works of art, timeline-based games about cultural events, crosswords, online coloring activities, and location identification games. Some of the games can be played collaboratively and all of the games can be shared directly into Google Classroom as announcements and or assignments. Watch Art, Culture, and Geography Games to learn more about how to play the games in Play with Arts & Culture. www.freetech4teachers.com
Walden, a game is a first-person exploration of the life of American philosopher Henry David Thoreau during his experiment in self-reliant living at Walden Pond. The game begins in the summer of 1845 when Thoreau moved to the Pond and built his cabin there. Players follow in his footsteps, surviving in the woods by finding food and fuel and maintaining their shelter and clothing. The game follows the loose narrative of Thoreau’s first year in the woods, with each season having its own challenges for survival and possibilities for inspiration.
HistorySimulations.com these lesson activities, students are assigned roles as world leaders and given objectives that mirror the national interests of those countries. Guided by these objectives, students conduct diplomacy, negotiate with other countries and develop strategies. 666 In these lesson activities, students are assigned roles as world leaders and given objectives that mirror the national interests of those countries. Guided by these objectives, students conduct diplomacy, negotiate with other countries and develop strategies. In these lesson activities, students are assigned roles as world leaders and given objectives that mirror the national interests of those countries. Guided by these objectives, students conduct diplomacy, negotiate with other countries and develop strategies. In these lesson activities, students are assigned roles as world leaders and given objectives that mirror the national interests of those countries. Guided by these objectives, students conduct diplomacy, negotiate with other countries and develop strategies. Created by a high school history teacher. Inexpensive Most about $20
League of Extraordinary Bloggers fromn Boston Children’s Museumis In the game, a criminal mastermind known as the FOX has been stealing important cultural landmarks and objects all across China, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam. Searches for him have proved fruitless, since his identity is a mystery. What the FOX doesn’t know is that teen bloggers from these four Asian countries have teamed up to bring him to justice. Students meet the League of Extraordinary Bloggers, also known as the LXB. They become Agent X, honorary fifth member of the LXB, and will help the four other bloggers track down the FOX. During gameplay, they will fly to each LXB member’s home country to investigate clues left behind by the FOX. Working together, they will learn about Asia and assemble clues from each country to track down this criminal mastermind. Students can play the game via the web on a mobile device, or they can download the iOS app.
Barbarian Battlefield A game one social science teacher created to teach the history of ancient Rome
Seterra has long been a “go-to” Geography site, with zillions of engaging games and quizzes. They’ve recently added a new fabulous feature to their interactives – now, anyone – without registering – can turn any of their games/quizzes into custom ones and share its unique url address. All you have to do is click on the “Create Custom Quiz” link at the top of each of their interactives. What a great assignment for students to do.
Lewis and Clark 5-8 Travel along with the Corps of Discovery
Bury Me, My Love The story of a young woman escaping war-torn Syria
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 aged by High Schol 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 Detective: Bavaria gr 9-12 is an engaging and fun way for students to build skills in data interpretation. Students must learn to discriminate between types of data, understand the different types of sources, and develop the ability to determine the implications of information. All while attempting to unravel the mysteries surrounding the village of Ingolstadt and Frankenstein Biomedical Lab in this modern day take on Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein.
The Redistricting Game (gr. 8 - 12) is designed to educate, engage, and empower citizens around the issue of political redistricting.
Cantor’s World game educates people about the Inclusive Wealth Index (IWI) and the way it complements other indices. In the game, players experiment with policy choices and experience firsthand the tug-of-war between short-term results and long-term sustainability. Participants play the role of the sole architect of a country and decide the specific targets for their respective countries.
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
Geo Artwork from Google Arts & Culture. Geo Artwork is a game in which you view an image of an artwork and then have to guess where in the world that artwork belongs. There are categories for visual arts, sculpture, textiles, books, and places. The places category is based on Google Street View imagery of places associated with or featuring an art work. Geo Artwork is played by looking at the image and then placing a pin on a map to guess at the answer. Once the pin is placed you're shown how close or far you were from the correct answer. After viewing the accuracy of your guess you can click through to learn more about the artwork. Watch short video to learn how to play Geo Artwork. www.freetech4teachers.com
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
Cards Against Humanity describes their game:In Cards Against Calamity, you take on the role of mayor of a small coastal town. You must balance the needs of various stakeholder groups, from fishermen to tourists and small business owners, while protecting the town from job loss, pollution, hurricanes, and hipsters. Do you have what it takes?
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
Cranky Uncle is a not-very-splashy, but effective, information literacy game that you can play in a browser or download as an app. Players learn various common strategies that can be used to manipulate consumers of 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.