Kentucky Virtual Library

Social Studies

• General Sites (click to expand)(click to collapse)

  American Presidents

  This site has everything you ever wanted to know about the American presidents. It includes teacher guides, reference material, key events of each presidency, and more.

  Biographical Dictionary

  This searchable dictionary includes more than 28,000 individuals from ancient times to the present.

  Biography.com

  Lots of great biographies from past to present and covers all areas of studies. Lesson plans are also available to use with individual biography sections.
  Level - High School, Middle School

  Kentucky Kids Project

  Fourth grade students from across Kentucky participated in a Home State project. Students researched various aspects of the Commonwealth. These include but are not limited to history, economy, geography, culture. Students will enjoy seeing what other fourth graders have found and created. Included are a jeopardy game to test learning about Kentucky from the website.

• Government and Civics (click to expand)(click to collapse)

  50 States

  This site has fast facts, capitals, trivia and other information about each state.

  Ben's Guide to U.S. Government for Kids

  "This site provides learning tools for K-12 students, parents, and teachers. These resources will teach how our government works, the use of the primary source materials of GPO Access, and how one can use GPO Access to carry out their civic responsibilities. And, just as GPO Access provides locator services to U.S. Government sites, Ben's Guide provides a similar service to U.S. Government Web sites developed for kids."

  Kids Voting USA

  This website contains links for social studies teachers and ideas for involving children in the political process.

  POTUS - Presidents of the United States

  This link comes from the Internet Public Library and provides background information, election results, cabinet members, notable events, and some points of interest on each of the presidents

• Culture and Society (click to expand)(click to collapse)

  AskAsia

  AskAsia offers a variety of educational resources for the K-12 classroom, with lesson plans, readings and resource center locator. All lessons, images and maps have been copyright-cleared and may be downloaded for use in the classroom.

  Kids @ National Geographic

  National Geographic's site designed for kids. Contains great information on the world.

  Kids World 2000

  A compilation of kid-friendly Internet sites on topics including geography, government, science, sports, and fun.

  Multicultural Pavilion

  This website contains resources and teaching tools for multicultural curriculum activities.

  UN CyberSchoolBus

  The United Nations have created this wonderful educational site to help students learn the UN and other countries.

  The World Almanac for Kids

  This is a kid's version of the World Almanac. It includes information on all countries.

• Economics (click to expand)(click to collapse)

  Corn Curriculum

  This site is produced by the National Corn Growers Association and has lessons for the classroom on corn.

  Economic Education Web

  This mega site includes teaching materials, online lessons and activities, teaching ideas for integrating the web into the classroom, online journals and documents and more.

  Econopolis!

  Students learn all about economics as they visit the community of Econopolis.

  EduStock

  Free real time stock market simulation for high school students learning what the stock market is and how it works.

• Geography (click to expand)(click to collapse)

  National Geographic

  This site from the National Geographic Society includes lesson plans, maps and geography links.

  Postcards from America

  This website lists all kinds of information about each of the 50 states in an easy to read and graphic format.

• Historical Perspective (click to expand)(click to collapse)

  American Civil War

  This website provides general resources, biographical information, histories and bibliographies, documentary records, images, information about battles and campaigns, regimental histories and much,much more.

  American Memory

  "American Memory is a web site created by the Library of Congress. It provides public access to over five million historical items, presented in over 80 thematic collections through the World Wide Web. These items reflect the collective American memory, its history and culture. The items include unique and rare documents, photographs, films, and audio recordings." Teachers be sure to look at the Leaning page linked below.

  American Memory Learning Page

  "This web site was created to assist educators as they use the American Memory web site to teach about United States history and culture. The site provides tips and tricks for using the American Memory collections, as well as frameworks, activities, and lessons that provide context for their use. It will be useful to life-long learners of all ages."

  Ancient History, Legend & Myth - Focus on the Near East

  A listing of other websites, this site is good for articles and other myth and folklore information on the Near East. Includes links to chronologies, articles, archeological information, museums and myths.
  Level - High School
  Recommended by - Jerry Parks

  History Channel

  You can print out lesson plans to go with the topics. Ask your school library to record certain programs and build a great video collection.
  Level - High School

  Kentuckiana Digital Library

  Explore and search for primary historical resources from the special collections and archives of Kentucky. Find full civil war diaries of Kentucky soldiers, photos of appalachia by Doris Ullmann, oral history transctripts, old recordings of kentucky fiddlers, and more.

  Kentucky Association of Teachers of History

  "KATH is an interdisciplinary service organization for all those concerned about improving the quality of history education in Kentucky. Members include elementary, middle school, high school, and college and university teachers, as well as administrators and public historians."

  National Archives

  This site from the National Archives contains reproducible copies of primary historical documents from the Archives and teaching activities to use with the documents.

  Teaching with Primary Sources

  Developed by the Archive Resource Center, this page has links to a discussion group and three federal agencies's pages on how to teach using their resources.