Suzi Malisewski's List: Social Studies Resources

Google Ideas was interested in exploring how technology can continue to support and improve constitution design. The result was Constitute: a project developed by the Comparative Constitutions Project, a collaboration between researchers at the University of Texas, the University of Chicago and University College London, and seeded by Google Ideas. Constitute allows drafters, academics and global citizens to find and compare the world’s constitutions.”

Using the site, drafters and citizens can browse constitutions by country and year, or cross-compare whole or parts of documents. Users can also search for specific words and phrases, or use the topics menu to drill down into specific themes. The Comparative Constitutions Project cataloged and tagged nearly 350 topics, which range from the fairly general, such as “Citizenship” and “Foreign Policy,” to the very specific, such as “Suffrage and turnouts” and “Judicial Autonomy and Power.

60-Second Civics is a daily podcast on American civics and government. The Daily Civics Quiz tests listeners' knowledge each daily episode.

Washington University's Youtube Channel: Washington University has digitized and archived 148 first person accounts of the Great Depression. The accounts cover events from 1929 to the beginning of U.S. involvement in WWII.

Cartoons for the Classroom is a service of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. Cartoons in the Classroom offers more than one hundred lesson plans based on editorial cartoons created by the members of the AAEC. Each lesson plan is available as free pdf download. As you might expect, most of the lessons deal with current political and economic topics, but you will also find some lessons that are not time sensitive.

About This Collection This assemblage of more than 500 prints made in America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries encompasses several forms of political art. Most of the prints are from the divisions PC/US series, which consists of individually cataloged political cartoons and caricatures.

This new atlas contains more than 700 historical maps of the United States. The maps within the atlas are arranged into eighteen sections. As a student and teacher of history I was drawn to the sections devoted to population, territorial expansion, political parties and elections, and military history.

Many of the maps within the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States can be animated to show changes over time. For example, in the section on States, Territories, and Cities you can view individual maps for each decade from 1790 to 1930 or you can click the "animate" button to see the maps put together in a time lapse animation. All of the historical maps in the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States are displayed on top of a contemporary outline of the United States.

A website designed to educate students about current issues being debated in Congress. Students visiting the site can get background information on each issue to prepare themselves for classroom activities like debates and moot courts.

is a collection of approximately 400 items or 2,000 digital files related to inaugurations from George Washington's in 1789 to Barack Obama's inauguration of 2009. The presentation, which was compiled by the Library of Congress, includes diaries and letters of presidents and of those who witnessed inaugurations, handwritten drafts of inaugural addresses, broadsides, inaugural tickets and programs, prints, photographs and sheet music. The collection is organized chronologically by presidential inauguration.

Theodore Roosevelt - His Life and Times on Film

Beyond the Bubble is a resource produced by the Stanford History Education Group for the purpose of helping teachers teach with primary source documents. 

Docs Teach offers seven free tools that teachers can use to create interactive learning activities based on primary source documents and images. The seven tools are Finding a Sequence, Focusing on Details, Making Connections, Mapping History, Seeing the Big Picture, Weighing the Evidence, and Interpreting Data. 

The Stock Market Game™ (SMG) gives students the chance to invest a hypothetical $100,000 in an on-line portfolio. They think they're playing a game. You know they're learning economic and financial concepts they'll use for the rest of their lives.