Our Documents site

As I continue to look for materials and content to improve and expand my social studies curriculum I a came across the following site.  OurDocuments.com offers documents for students to study the diversity of our country to help learn about our rights and responsibilities as citizens.

To help us think, talk and teach about the rights and responsibilities of citizens in our democracy, we invite you to explore 100 milestone documents of American history. These documents reflect our diversity and our unity, our past and our future, and mostly our commitment as a nation to continue to strive to "form a more perfect union."

(continue reading here >>)

Animated Maps: A History / Social Studies Resource

Analyzing and interpreting maps is part of the Social Studies learning standards for most elementary and middle school grades.  Mapping History, produced by the University of Oregon, features lots of animated maps illustrating problems, patterns, and events throughout history. Mapping History is essentially a digital atlas of American, European, Latin American, and African history. Each section is divided into modules based on historical themes and eras.

Applications for Education
Mapping History is a resource to bookmark for the next time that you need a thematic map to illustrate a pattern in history. I found that some of the maps will also be useful as question prompts. For example, this map prompts students to evaluate the extent to which the expansion of slavery in the U.S. was connected to the demand for cotton.