Index: Large Collections of Social Studies Lessons; Civics; Current Events (including Iraq, Terrorism, Afghanistan); Elections; Economics; Families; Genealogy; Geography; United Nations; Human Rights; Immigration; Presidents/White House; Psychology; Sociology; Anthropology; Archaeology; Rubrics for Social Studies; Return to Educational Resources and Lesson Plans; Go to the National Standards for Social Studies

Click here to find social studies standards and curricula from all 50 states.

Teaching children Social Studies can be a challenge. But learning about Government and the values of civic engagement will help children grow into the leaders of tomorrow.

Didn't find it here? Try a Google search:

Academy Curricular Exchange
Click on grade level below.
High School
Middle
Elementary

Discovery Channel School
Great lesson plans for social studies, science, and literature

Lesson Plans Across the Curriculum
Many lesson plans, including some unique to this site.

Lesson Plans and Teaching Strategies
Scroll down the list for links to lesson plan sources.

Social Science Education Consortium
Lesson plans for both the elementary and secondary levels from the NCSS.

Social Studies Teacher Resources
Also from NCSS, this page provides many resources including the National Standards as well as links to sites organized by the Curriculum Standards

Social Studies School Service
An excellent resource with information and lesson plans for a variety of social studies topics.

United Nations Cyber School Bus
Lesson plans and resources in a variety of areas including human rights, cities, peace, poverty, women's rights, and world health.

The American Promise
Lesson plans and activities about democracy, government, and U.S. history.

Social Studies Sources
Links to resources in all social studies areas.

Civics Lesson Plans and Resources
For videos, activity books, and Internet activities in government and law, click here.  
Center for Civics Education: Sample Lessons
Lesson plans for elementary through high school. Scroll down and find the grade level you want, then click on "Teacher's Guide."

US Government Lesson Plans
A large number of lesson plans for a variety of grade levels from The Educator's Reference Desk.

Close Up Online: Civics Resources
An excellent resource for for middle or high school civics with documents, special topics and links.

Core Democratic Values
Secondary lesson plans and links to similar sites.

U.S. Government Lesson Plans
An entire semester (18 weeks) of high school lesson plans by George Cassutto .

Let Freedom Ring!
A 5th-grade unit in which students reenact the constitutional convention and create a new government for the 13 colonies. 

Creating a Citizen of the Community, Nation, and World
A lesson plan on citizenship and responsibility for grades 8-12.

The Declaration Versus the Communist Manifesto
A high school lesson plan.

Comparing Democracy and Republic
A middle-grade lesson plan.

Set Up a Class Government
A unit for grade 4.

The Constitution Community
An collection of lesson plans from the National Archives and Records Administration that address constitutional issues, correlate to national academic standards, and encourage the analysis of primary source documents accessible via the Internet. .

You and the U.S. Constitution
A 4th-grade lesson plan.

US Constitution and Amendments
A lesson plan for grades 4-12.

Observing Constitution Day
A wonderful Constitution Day lesson plan from the National Archives and Records Administration which uses original historical documents accessible via the Internet.

Exploring the Bill of Rights
A 5th-grade lesson plan.

The Bill of Right is For Us Today
A lesson plan for grades 7-9.

Reorganizing the Bill of Rights
An 8th-grade lesson plan.

Perseverance and the First Amendment
A middle or high school lesson plan on 1st Ammendment and freedom of speech from the National Constitution Center. See also Regulating Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Speech and Automatic Language: Examining the Pledge of Allegiance.

Introduction of Restrictions on Freedom of Speech
A high school lesson plan.

Separation of Powers
A lesson plan for grades 10-12 on the three branches of government.

Mock Congress
A high school lesson plan.

The Many Powers of the President
A lesson plan designed to help students become familiar with the many roles of the president.

The Constitution, Juvenile Justice, and You
A lesson plan developed for Special Education Students in grades 9-12.

Ask a Cop.org
Great site for crime prevention information  and lesson plans.

Crime and Punishment
Seven units developed by fellows of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute covering topics in the theory and practice of crime and punishment in contemporary America from the standpoint of politics and political theory.

Who Serves Time? Breaking Down Stereotypes about Juvenile Offenders
A lesson plan for grades 6-12 from LA Youth. See also Juvenile Justice for an excellent resource.

Justice for All
Another 6-12 lesson plan from the above source.

Here Comes the Judge
An interactive web-based lesson plan for learning about the Supreme Court, the Justices, and landmark decisions.

Search and Seizure
A lesson plan for grades 7-12.

Justice
Another lesson plan for grades 7-12.

Symbolic Speech
A 9th-grade lesson plan on the role of the Supreme Court in interpreting the law as it relates to the 1st Amendment.

Supreme Court Decisions on Freedom of Religion
A high school lesson plan.

United States vs. Thomas Cooper: A Violation of the Sedition Law
A lesson plan using original documents accessible via the Internet.

Laws
A lesson plan designed to help students appreciate the importance of rules and laws within a society and to recognize the process by which these laws are created and implemented. See also Laws 2.

Your Own Classroom Court
An activity designed for teachers who would like to allow their students to have a more active role in setting classroom rules, in decision-making, and as a means of settling differences.

Decision-Making
A grades 4-6 lesson on conflict resolution.

Mock Trial: The Titanic
Interesting lesson plan for trying the case: Jensen vs. White Star Lines.

Embassy World
Connect to hundreds of embassies. 

Election 2008 Lesson Plans and Resources (Scroll down for lesson plans on the U.S. Electoral College)
Teaching about Election 2008
Articles and activities from Scholastic.

Vote 2008
Lesson plans as well as articles and essays written by students.

Election 2008
Many lesson plans from the New York Times.

Election Central 2008
A guide for teachers from Cyber Learning World.

Access, Analyze, Act
A curriculum guide and elementary-level lesson plans fro PBS.

2008 Election Central
Many lesson plans from ePals.

Elections 2008
An interactive election map as well as other resources from WETA.

Teachable Moments: High School Lesson Plans
Several lesson plans related to elections including Presidential Election 2008, 5 Key Issues, The Issue of Race, and Engaging Your Class Through Groupwork.

2008 United States Presidential Election Unit Study
Many Montessori-based lesson plans.

Sticker Race Headquarters
From the Democracy Project. Stat making stickers!

Vote 2008: The Primaries
Two lesson plans from Online News Hour.

Analyzing Election Cartoons
A secondary lesson plan from News Hour Extra.

Elections in the United States
Many lesson plans using recent NY Times articles.

The Electoral College
A lesson plan for grades 3-12 from Education World. See also Lesson Plan: The Electoral College and  U.S. Electoral College Teaching Resources.

Does My Vote Count? Teaching the Electoral College
A 10th-grade lesson plan from Learn NC.  See also Electoral College Road Map and Lesson Plans.

The Mystery of Voters Who Don't Vote
A high school lesson plan from EconEdLink.

Voting is Elementary
A mock-election lesson plan in MS Word.

Kids Voting USA
Resources and curricula. You will have to register (it's free).

Project Vote Smart Lesson Plans
Nine lesson plans on campaigns, political parties, and elections. 

Donkies, and Elephants, and Voters, Oh My!
One of many election-related lesson plans for grades 3-6 from the PBS Democracy Project.

Why Vote? A Public Awareness Campaign
One more elementary lesson plan from the above site.

Copernicus Election Watch
Another source for election lesson plans.

Winning the Vote: How Americans Elect a President
Three lesson plans from the Smithsonian.  

Elections and campaign Lesson Plans
Many lesson plans from the Lesson Plans Page.

Primaries, Voting, and Elections
Many lesson plans from Education World.

Decision 2004 or 6 or 8
A high school lesson plan in which students determine their political beliefs and learn about political campaigns.

Current Events Lesson Plans and Resources
The links at the top of this list deal with current events in general. Most provide many lesson plans or ideas for teaching about current events. Presdent Obama, Lesson plans for Iraq/Iraq War, Terrorism and September 11, Muslims/Arab Americans/Tolerance, Iran, and Afghanistan follow.

Social Studies: Current Events
Current events lesson plans from The Educator's Reference Desk (formerly Ask ERIC).

Teachable Moment: Activities for High School Students
Many activities related to current events.

Twenty Five Great Ideas for Teaching Current Events
From Education World. See also Curriculum: Why Teach Current Events?

New York Times Learning Network
News summaries, a news quiz, and daily lesson plans for teaching about current events. See their Daily Lesson Plan Archive.

NewsHour Extra: Teacher Resources
Many current events leson plans for a variety of subject areas including the lesson below.

Iraq Lesson Plans and Iraq War Lesson Plans
Teaching the Iraq War
Many lesson plans from PBS News Hour Extra.

Iraq: The Reach of War
Many lesson plans from the NY Times including Take Five: Reflecting on Five Years of War.

War in Iraq
Lesson plans and resources from the Constitutional Rights Foundation.

Rebuilding Iraq
Three lesson plans from Scholastic.

Teaching Students About War
Four lesson plans from Educators for Social Responsibility.

Understanding the Iraq War
Links to helpful sites from the School Library Journal (1/1/2008).

Should the U.S. Have Attacked Iraq?
This interesting site "presents in a simple, nonpartisan pro-con format, responses to the core question "Should the US have attacked Iraq?" 

Analyzing U.S. Policies in Iraq
An Internet-based lesson plan.

The Rights of Detainees at Guantanamo Bay
A lesson plan from PBS. For another lesson plan, see Presidential Power: Guantanamo's 'Enemy Combatants.'

Teaching About the War
Lesson plans and teaching ideas from Rethinking Schools Online. These lessons seem to promote an anti-war perspective.

Children's Book Study Guides: The Librarian of Basra and Alia's Mission: Saving the Books of Iraq
These two recent children's books give teachers a positive opportunity to open up discussions of the Iraq war with their elementary students.

Iraq: Teaching Resources
Links to a number of resources that may be useful for those planning lesson on the possibility of war with Iraq.

Conflict in Iraq: Confronting Policy Issues
A two-day lesson focusing on role play and discussion regarding policy options.

Iraq: A Country Study
All sorts of information about Iraq from the Library of Congress. See also The Iraq Foundation and Iraqi Voices.

Terrorism Lesson Plans
America Responds to Terrorism
Many lesson plans and resources from the Constitutional Rights Foundation.

Thinking About Terrorism
A high school activity from Teachable Moment.org.

Terrorism: How Should We Respond?
A lesson plan from the Choices Program that "invites students to explore four divergent policy options on the question of how the United States should respond to terrorism and then to articulate their own considered perspective on this issue. "

Responding to Terrorism: Challenges for Democracy
A 5-day unit from the Choices Program.

Coping with Terrorism
A long list of lesson plans from the Lesson Plans Page.  

What Is Terrorism?
A lesson plan for grades 9-12 from the above source.

In Search of Al-Qaeda
A regularly-updated resource from PBS Frontline.

Who is Osama bin Laden
A web-based activity. For background information see The World According to Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.      

Terrorism and Tolerance
Many resources from TeachersFirst.com.

Backgrounder: Attack on the U.S - What Happened?
To make sure you have your facts straight on September 11, 2001, this page from CNNfyi offers a review of the events.

Remembering September 11
A teacher's guide from Parade Classroom designed to help teachers address the second anniversary of September 11, 2001.   

Another Day That Will Live in Infamy
From the above site, this junior high or high school lesson plan in which students are encouraged to share, through discussion and writing, their feelings about these and other acts of terrorism, as well related issues such as national security and media coverage of the attacks.

Reflection on September 11
Lesson plans and resources from the Constitutional Rights Foundation.

Memorializing September 11, 2001
A lesson plan from Education World adaptable to grades 3-12 in which students work in teams to design monuments to the victims of September 11.

Memorial for September 11th
Different than the above lesson, this middle-grade or high school activity requires students to use art and descriptive poems to describe their feelings about September 11, 2001.

After September 11
Teachers' guides and ideas for lessons and assignments for high school and college classrooms from the Social Science Research Council.

America Responds
Many lesson plans and resources from PBS on Afghanistan, human rights, tolerance, and terrorism.

Muslims/Arab Americans/Tolerance
Who Are the Arab Americans?
An activity designed to teach tolerance. See other lesson plans about Arab Americans and Muslems.     

Arab Culture and Society
A lesson plan from the American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee (ADC.org) that provides suggestions  for Arab-Americans who are speaking to K-12 students/classrooms. Many of the ideas and much of the information could be adapted to an introductory lesson plan on Arab culture. For other lesson plans from this organization, see ADC and Education .

Islam and Islamic Civilizations
Lesson plans and resources for teachers from the Minnesota Humanities Commission.    

The Arab Culture in Review: A Global Perspective
An Internet-based project in which students assume various roles within and related to the Arab culture. It consists of five activities and an assessment.

Teaching Tolerance Through Literature
A high school lesson plan.

Islam's Sharia Law
A lesson plan in which students learn about Islamic beliefs and Islamic law.

Afghanistan Lesson Plans
Afghanistan Today: Civil War and Human Rights
A high school lesson plan from the above page. Go to the Afghan Information Centre for background information and news on Afghanistan or go to WWW-VL History of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan
A high school lesson plan from the Discovery School.com examining the recent history of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan: Land in Crisis
Four lesson plans (one for each level: primary, intermediate, middle, and secondary) and a downloadable map of Afghanistan from National Geographic.

Analyze the Political Future of Afghanistan
Discussion questions. Click here for the accompanying news story. You will find many similar activities at CNNfyi.com.  

America Attacks
Many lesson plans from the New York Times.

Iran Lesson Plans and Resources
Iran Today
See also Iran Today: News.

Iran: A country study
See also Iran.

Examine the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
Though this CNN lesson plan is from 2003, the issue it explores is still pertinent today.

International Forum on Iran's Nuclear Program
A chronology of events and a lesson plan on pdf format.

Iran in 2004
A lesson plan from NewsHour Extra examing Iran's political system and U.S.-Iranian relations.

Economics Lesson Plans and Resources
Click here for videos and activity books to enhance your economics curriculum.

EconEdLink
A variety of online and classroom learning activities based on economic topics in the news, all designed to help integrate economic concepts across the curriculum as outlined in the National Content Standards in Economics.  

EcEdWeb
More lesson plans tied to the National Standards.

National Council on Economics Education
Many resources including the Mint, a resource on money management.

Economics Lesson Plans
Sixteen lesson plans from The Educator's Reference Desk (formerly Ask ERIC).

Economics WebQuest: Cost of Production
See also Economic Forecasting: An Internet WebQuest, Can You Make Cents of Economics?, and Econ-o-mania.

National Budget Simulation
An online simulation from  EconEdLink.

Foundation for Teaching Economics
This site contains about 50 economics lesson plans, including 8 that have won awards for excellence. Click here to access their Home Page.  

How to Budget Your Money
A secondary lesson plan on budgeting and responsibility. To access the two follow-up lessons click on the titles: Unexpected Expenses and Predicting Future Expenses.  

A Curriculum of United States Labor History for Teachers
An entire curriculum complete with handouts.

Production, Distribution, and Consumption in a Free-Market
A 4th-grade lesson plan.

Distribution of Goods
An elementary lesson plan.

Supply and Demand
A lesson plan for grades 4-7.

Limiting Trade
A secondary lesson plan involving a debate over a proposed new tariff.

String Trade
A 9th-grade lesson plan using economic and geographic themes to demonstrate the concept of global interdependence.

Show Me the Money
A creative webquest on investment strategies complete with assessment rubrics.

Investing Money Lesson Plans
From Money Instructor.com.

Virginia Council on Economic Education
Ten lesson plans on investing and the stock market.

Virtual Stock Exchange
See also Free Stock Market Simulation Game.    

StocksQuest
Online stock market games. Requires free registration. See also their 15 lesson plans.

The Mint
Middle and high school money-management and basic economics lesson plans.

Teacher Resources:Consumer Education
Classroom activities and lesson plans.

Economics and Geography Lesson Plans for Children's Books
Thirty-two lesson plans for grades one to five.

Families Lesson Plans and Resources
Families Are Different
Grade 2 activities for Nina Pellegrini's book by this title.

Families
A 1st-grade lesson plan designed to help students  realize that each and every one of them is a unique and special part of their family.

The Important Thing About a Family
A 1st-grade lesson plan in which students identify the ways families provide basic needs to their members and then create and publish a booklet to display this information. This lesson is designed to have a class of older children work with the first-graders to help with the reading and writing. See also Family Responsibilities for another 1st-grade lesson plan from this source.

Japanese Extended Family
A lesson plan for grades 1-2 that engages students in an activity that will assist the in understanding the concept of the Japanese extended family.

Families on Display: An Introduction to the Study of Families
A 2nd or 3rd-grade lesson plan designed to help students recognize that there are different family structures and different roles played by various family members.

Developing Relationships with Older People
A lesson plan for grades 2-4  designed to help elementary age students develop relationships with older people.

Introducing TV Families
A lesson plan for grades 2-5 designed  make students aware of how families are portrayed on television and the differences between TV families and real families.

My Family and Me
A 3rd-grade lesson plan in which students compare the social structure of ant colonies and their families.

Talking About Family Changes
A 5th-grade lesson plan on dealing with and communicating about family changes.

Cultural Diversity: The American Family - Past, Present, and Future
A 7th-grade unit that explores the family from a sociological point of view to see how “family” in America has changed, especially in the last twenty-five years, and how societal changes have had an impact on family life. It also looks at families from different cultural backgrounds.

Family History/Genealogy Lesson Plans
Genealogy for Children
A site dedicated to the development of future genealogists! It provides resources and activities for teachers,  students, and parents.

Genealogy Lesson Plans
This page includes a brief genealogy lesson plan for grades 4-6, a genealogy handout, and notes for a 90-minute presentation on Jewish genealogy titled "Climbing the Family Tree."

Uncover Your Culture
A 5th-grade lesson in which students define "culture" and orally report on their individual family culture.

Family History
A middle or high school lesson plan.

Exploring Our Roots
A lesson plan for grades 7-12 designed to incorporate personal family trees into the larger context of community, state, and national histories.

This is Your Life
A unit for grades 7-12 in which students explore their backgrounds and discover information about themselves and their families.

Genealogy Research
An 11th-grade lesson plan designed to help create interest in and personalize history as students learn about their families and their heritage. 

Lesson plans for geography and history have been moved to their own sites.

United Nations Lesson Plans
School Kits on the United Nations
Ordering information and sample units for these "kits" developed by the U.N.

United Nations Day
A lesson plan dealing with United Nations Day as well as the history and current status of the U.N. and its agencies.

Model U.N. Headquarters
Have a model U.N. conference! See also UN Simulation.

The United Nations: An Introduction for Students
Information about the U.N. written specifically for students. See also The United Nations Home Page  and  United Nations System of Organizations.