Cultural Suitcases
Cultural Suitcases provide a structured yet flexible experience for students as they learn about world culture. The goal of each suitcase is to assist teachers in educating themselves and their students about a country's traditions and culture, while broadening understanding and appreciation of the different cultures of the world. Materials are selected to help students connect with the culture of a specific country and include arts and crafts, books and printed materials, clothing and textiles, food-related items, and music and games. The suitcases include lesson plans and activities and can be an asset to any classroom. as well as lesson plans and activities to be used with the materials.
http://worldroom.tamu.edu/culturalsuitcases/Index.asp
Discover Diplomacy
Diplomacy is a complex and often challenging practice of fostering relationships around the world in order to resolve issues and advance interests. Discover the People who conduct diplomacy, the Places where the Department of State engages in diplomacy, and the Issues diplomacy helps resolve. This website also offers Educator Educator Resources with a list of discussion questions, getting started activities, connecting activities, and much more.
http://diplomacy.state.gov/discoverdiplomacy/
Global Dimension
Database of resources for most Social Studies topics and themes.
www.globaldimension.org.uk
The Globalist
This web-only publication discusses the traits and effects of globalization in politics, business, and current events. Its Global e-Briefings for students (under the About Us tab, scroll down and click on "For Students") include Fast Facts about the week's news, a country profile, discussion ideas about a relevant issue, and a weekly quiz.
http://www.theglobalist.com
Hands-On activities for all Social Studies Courses from San Antonio ISD
www.saisd.net/admin/curric/sstudies/handson.html
PowerPoint Sites
This site has had almost 24 million views since 2006 and offers hundreds of free PowerPoint lessons on a variety of topics.
www.mrdonn.org
This is another great site which offers over 220 free PowerPoint lessons for Socials Studies.
www.pptpalooza.net
Primary Source Webinar:
The Common Core: Getting There Globally
How can we best prepare students to develop Common Core skills for history and the humanities in a way that incorporates global content and perspectives? Each webinar will feature grade-specific, global primary sources and present classroom-friendly strategies designed to help students analyze and evaluate a variety of complex nonfiction texts.
Jan. 31 (Middle School) and Feb. 28 (High School) 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. EST
Fee: $15 each; Free for educators in Primary Source partnership districts
To register contact registration@primarysource.org
Puzzlemaker
This site, created by Discovery Education, offers a way to generate your own free puzzles using vocabulary from your classroom lessons. You can make word search, criss-cross, cryptograms, hidden messages, double puzzles and more.
www.puzzlemaker.com
Region 4 Social Studies Resources
This site links to hundreds of great websites detailing lesson plans, classroom activities, and teaching materials about world and United States history.
http://www.esc4.net/
TED
This site is a virtual clearinghouse of more than 500 of the best talks and performances from some of today’s greatest thinkers, all available for free. These presentations are designed to spread ideas by bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, and Design.
www.ted.com
100 People
This site offers a great way to approach diversity throughout the world. It presents an accurate description of the world population proportionally represented by 100 individuals (1:62.5 million), based on criteria such as age, nationality, gender, religion, and language which allows students to change their perspective on demographics around the world.
www.100people.org
Around the World with 80 schools
The challenge is to connect your students with 80 schools from around the world via Skype (a free video conferencing tool). It is up to you how regularly and for how long you connect with your Skype partners. The only requirement to count as a “connection” is that you are connecting your students with another school anywhere in the world.
http://aroundtheworldwith80schools.net/about-2/
Asia Society
k-12 lesson plans
http://asiasociety.org/education-learning/resources-schools/secondary-lesson-plans
ePals
This site sets up free international classroom pen pals and allows you to select the country and ages you are looking for.
www.epals.com
Free Rice
Great website that quizzes students knowledge on capitals and country locations throughout the world (be sure to click on the “subject” tab to redirect from the English section). For every correct answer, students can feed hungry people around the world through the World Food Programme.
www.freerice.com
Fun, Educational Geography Game
This is a seriously fun way to learn the locations of countries, capitals, landmarks and more. With levels, time limits, and even proximity readouts, this game will make your students approach geography in a whole new way.
http://games.co.za/topography
Gapminder World
Gapminder is a non-profit venture promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics and other information about social, economic and environmental development at local, national and global levels. This site features interactive, statistical graphs designed to give students a fact-based worldview.
http://games.co.za/topography
GeoMentor
The GeoMentor Program, developed by National Geographic and Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), is designed to inspire people who use geography in their work to help educators and students see the world in new ways. A GeoMentor volunteer "adopts" a school, class, or club, and supports the educator(s) in working with young people using the tools of geography, including maps, globes, atlases, charts, imagery, and field work. Teachers who are interested in being paired with a GeoMentor volunteer should visit the program's website at www.geomentor.org for more details.
Global Elementary Model United Nations in DFW
Global Elementary Model United Nations is what the name implies -- elementary (and middle school) students role-playing the assemblies of the United Nations! This enriching, exciting opportunity has been available in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.A. since 1990.
http://www.unol.org/gemun/
The Globalist
This web-only publication discusses the traits and effects of globalization in politics, business, and current events. Its Global e-Briefings for students (under the About Us tab, scroll down and click on "For Students") include Fast Facts about the week's news, a country profile, discussion ideas about a relevant issue, and a weekly quiz.
http://www.theglobalist.com
iEARN Webinar:
How Common Core State Standards align to global collaborative projects
Wednesday January 25, 6 - 7pm EST
Register
iEARN Webinar:
Planning a global collaborative project for your classroom
This interactive course is made up of educators around the United States and the world. Each week you work in your own time to complete activities and discussions, but are also required to collaborate with other participants in the course. At the end of the four weeks you will have a project template for integrating a global collaborative project into your classroom that is aligned to your required standards and helps you plan your classroom work. February 6 - March 4.
Register now
McDonalds sites and menus from around the world
http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/country/map.html
My Wonderful World
This site was developed by National Geographic as a resource to encourage teachers and students to get more involved with geography. It includes downloadable action kits, resources and fun ways to bring the world to your classroom.
www.mywonderfulworld.org
National Geographic bee for 4-8th graders
Each year thousands of schools in the United States participate in the National Geographic Bee using materials prepared by the National Geographic Society. The contest is designed to encourage teachers to include geography in their classrooms, spark student interest in the subject, and increase public awareness about geography.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geobee/how-schools-register/
National Geographic Xpeditions
Xpeditions is home to the U.S. National Geography Standards—and to thousands of ideas, tools, and interactive adventures that bring them to life. Xpeditions offers lesson plans sorted by standard and grade level, activities, printer-friendly maps and atlases, and much more.
www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/
Odtmaps
ODT provides innovative maps, products, and resources to help you see the world in new ways.
http://www.odtmaps.com/
Outreach World
A comprehensive one-stop resource for teaching international and area studies and foreign languages. At the core of Outreach World are 120 federally-funded National Resource Centers (NRCs) based at 146 universities, focusing on Africa, Asia, Canada, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, the Pacific Islands and International Studies.
http://www.outreachworld.org/searchresources.asp
Population Education
This site offers amazing interactive lessons for students that use ecology, human geography, anthropology, economics, biology, public health, sociology, environmental studies, history and civics all rolled into one, with a good bit of mathematics to help them understand where they’ve come from and where they might be headed.
www.populationeducation.org
Richland College’s United Nations Resources
This website from Richland College offers over 50 short videos about the United Nations and the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (UNMDG’s). It also includes all the curriculum you need to start a Model U.N. on your campus.
www.rlc.dcccd.edu/modelun/
Story of Stuff Project
20 minute cartoon that takes you through the creation, selling, use and discarding of the stuff we use and its impact on people and the environment- Great video.
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
Tag Galaxy
This site will find photos on Flickr pertaining to a "tag." You enter a tag, and the related galaxy appears on screen. Each planet contains the pictures of a certain tag, and when you click on them, the images are placed on a 3D rotating globe.
http://www.taggalaxy.de
Teachers Without Borders- Millennium Development Goals- Teacher Ambassador Program
The Millennium Development Ambassadors (MDA) program is a face-to-face, online, and SMS-enabled program designed to inform teachers how to take local, practical steps to work towards the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals.
http://www.teacherswithoutborders.org/programs/core-programs/millennium-development-ambassadors
Two FREE Open Courseware classes offered through MIT:
- WorkingGlobally
- Communicating Across Cultures
The Week Magazine
This 40-page weekly magazine covers all the best of the U.S. and international media, offering information from all sides, and it’s a great way to keep up-to-date on the biggest developments and stories around the world. The online version of the magazine is free!
www.theweekdaily.com
Week in Rap
The Week in Rap is a weekly summary of world news headlines in the form of a short rap video-Very Cool.
http://theweekinrap.com/
Worldmapper
Worldmapper is a collection of maps and cartograms which re-size territories around the world according to statistics, demographics and other indicators. Many are available with animation or as PDF posters.
www.worldmapper.org
The World Savvy Monitor
is a free service of World Savvy, a 501c3 national education nonprofit. The World Savvy Monitor is designed and written for educators, but is a universal tool for deepening content knowledge of world issues. It provides background, context, and perspectives to help understand the conversation in the global community.
http://worldsavvy.org/monitor/
World Wise Schools
This program from the Peace Corps helps you find rich educational opportunities and cross-cultural lessons, stories, activities, videos and much more. You can even connect your classroom with a Peace Corps volunteer in another country!
www.peacecorps.gov/wws/
The Economist
This companion website to the magazine is the premier online source for the analysis of world business and current affairs, providing authoritative insight and opinion on international news, world politics, business, finance, science and technology, as well as overviews of cultural trends and regular industry, business and country special reports.
www.economist.com
Foundation for Teaching Economics
Trade Game (with paper bags) Many more interactive economics lessons on the site!
www.fte.org/teacher-resources/lesson-plans/efllessons/the-magic-of-markets-trade-creates-wealth/
Global IQ w/ The Economist
The World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth presents Global I.Q. with The Economist, a monthly online audiocast that connects council members with journalists around the world to discuss the pressing issues of the day. All of the programs are archived in our media library so you can use them whenever it suits your classroom needs.
http://www.dfwworld.org/globaliq
Micro Lending - Kiva
This site lets you control who gets your micro loan and even provides photos and descriptions of the project and its status. It’s a great way to introduce an educational class project that also helps out some of the world’s poorest people.
www.kiva.org
Freakonomics Study Guide
Although Freskonomics wasn’t written with an eye toward academia, it has been adopted into many college and high school curricula. To go along with all this academic activity, HarperCollins has commissioned a Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics Instructor’s Guide and Student’s Guide. These guides were written by S. Clayton Palmer, who teacher at Weber State University and Westminster College of Salt Lake, and J. Lon Carlson of Illinois State University. Because Palmer and Carlson both teach economics, their guides are most directly aimed at the discipline, but they should also work well in English, history, and math classrooms.
http://www.freakonomics.com/books/superfreakonomics/study-guides/