Chicago Public Schools had instituted a structured social studies curriculum with daily lesson plans for every grade K - 12. Look at your grade level to see if there are suggested activities you wish to adapt for your own classroom. Adobe Acrobat is needed to view these lesson plans.

Maps

1. Aerial shots of places on Earth from The World's Largest Online Database! Microsoft's TerraServer
2. Africa Map Quiz
3. Color Landform Atlas of the United States - Relief maps, satellite images, black and white maps, and much more.
4. Create your Own Map - Cut the continents and oceans out of clay or dough, then add the details - Lesson Plan
5. Do It Yourself - Color Coded State Maps - Create your own map with features - Excellent resource for Middle school and High school
6. Flags and Maps of the World - Click on a flag and see a map and information about the country.
7. A Gallery of Map Projections - Graphics Optimized for Printing from the Browser
8. Google Maps - This map search contains a fantastic resource for geography teachers. Convert the view to Satellite or Hybrid and click and drag on the map to "fly" to another country. Zoom in to explore the geography of the selected country. Wow!
9. Interactive maps - roll your cursor over the country to see the country name and capitol.
   1. Africa
   2. Asia
   3. Canada
   4. Central America
   5. Europe
   6. Mexico
   7. Middle East
   8. South America
   9. United States
10. Latitude, Longitude, and Mapmaking - This lesson requires students to review the concepts of latitude and longitude and to use these concepts to create maps of different countries on the computer
11. Map Collections - from 1500-2004 - From the Library of Congress - Excellent resource! ; cities, towns,military battles, cultural landscapes, communication, transportation, general maps, conservation and many others.
12. Maps and Map Skills - Outline forms, Political Maps, Map Skills
13. Maps that Teach from Owl & Mouse software - Learn the countries of different continents and their capitals with these fun and educational map puzzle games. Interactive maps to learn continents, countries, states, capitals, borders, physical features and cultural monuments. Download maps from all over the world to use in class.
14. The Map Machine from National Geographic - interactive maps, or go to their Xpeditions section to find maps to print.
15. Map Services
    1. Expedia Maps and Driving Directions
    2. Maps on Us - free street maps
    3. MapNation
    4. MapQuest - a great source for U S street maps
    5. OnLine Maps from Rand McNally
    6. Yahoo maps and driving directions
    7. Windows Live Local
16. Map Stats - Find out the latest census information for a state, city, or town. State & County QuickFacts; quick, easy access to facts about people, business, and geography
17. Maps - Enhance curriculum with printable maps and statistical charts.
18. Maps - posted by the University of Texas at Austin
19. Maps and Cartography from the U C Berkeley Library
20. Outline Maps to Print or Copy
    1. Continents and the World - from abc teach
    2. Countries - from abc teach
    3. States - from abc teach
    4. USA Maps - States, Landforms, Capitals, Rivers and more
    5. USA Maps - Regions of the United States, Physical, and Climate (PDF format)
    6. USA outline map (the 48 contiguous states)
    7. Maps of the World - Outlines of every continent, latitudes, longitudes, oceans, lakes and more.
    8. Outline maps of the world - Enchanted Learning; individual countries around the world maps.
    9. Outline Maps - Blank Outline Maps of the Countries and Continents of the World
    10. Outline Maps of the US - Blank Outline Maps of the Fifty States of the United States
    11. Outline Maps - Countries and States; Site with many links. States and Countries in alphabetical order making it very easy to find exactly what you need.
21. Puzzle Maps Geography Game - Kids put together map puzzles in this animated geography game. The game includes 23 topics in areas such as landforms, continents and oceans, the United States , North America , South America , Europe , Asia , Africa , and Australia and Oceania . These interactive geography puzzles also include facts and interesting information about history.
    1. You can find similar activities at Label Maps or Clue Maps
22. UN Cartographic Section - General Maps, Peace-keeping Maps, Map Library
23. Working With Maps Lessons from USGS
    1. Map Adventures K-3
    2. What do Maps Show? 5-8
    3. Exploring Maps 7-12
24. World Maps - Discover the continent maps and information about each.

Countries of the world

1. CIA World Factbook - links to information about every country in the world
2. Continents - Scroll over a continent to learn more, click on a continent to visit its interactive map.
3. Country at a Glance - presented by the United Nations
4. Country Studies - an index of country information on the web posted by the Library of Congress
5. InfoNation - An easy-to-use, two-step database that allows you to view and compare the most up-to-date statistical data for the Member States of the United Nations. (This page opens in a new window. Close the window to return to this list)
6. Interactive Quizzes about a variety of countries
7. Travelocity offers information about countries around the world. You may select a country, region, or city from a pull down menu, or click on a map for a list of countries is a continent.
8. U. S. Department of State: Background Notes - These publications include facts about the land, people, history, government, political conditions, economy, and foreign relations of independent states, some dependencies, and areas of special sovereignty. 

Specific countries or continents

1. Africa Information Center - links to the 51 countries on this continent.
2. Africa - Teaching about Africa for K - 12
3. Africa Hotlist - from the Franklin Institute
4. African and South African Links Page
5. Ask Asia - a K-12 resource of the Asia Society
6. Asia Geographica
7. China hotlist - from the Franklin Institute
8. East Africa Living Encyclopedia from the African Studies Institute of the University of Pennsylvania
9. India
   1. Gateway to Government of India Sites - single window access to all Indian government web sites
   2. History of India
   3. An Introduction to India
   4. The Times of India - online news source somewhat like the U.S. CNN site
   5. Weather and Climate of India - posted by the High Commission of India, London
10. Japan - A page of Internet sites to use when teaching (and learning) about Japan
11. Japan - site provides an overview and detailed history of the country, articles on Japan's popular culture, interestings facts, and a photo gallery of Japanese artifacts - posted by an American citizen who has been living abroad in Japan for over seven years on 9/3/08
12. South America - from Enchanted Learning

States of the United States

1. Coast to Coast - students try to complete a cross-country road trip by answering questions about the states. The questions are hard, but students quickly learn interesting facts about the states. When they make it to Hawaii, there is a surprise.
2. Fifty States index gives links of interest for each state. You can find out what a state bird or flower is, for example, but a link will also show you the bird or flower. This looks good for projects on any of the states.
3. Fifty States Guide - Website consists of concise and meaningful information about each state. Take a trip around the country without ever leaving home! Includes history, geography, outdoors, tourism, State links and State Info.
4. Interactive U. S. Geography Activities -
   1. How well do you know the states of the United States?
   2. Do you know the names of the state capitals?
   3. Can you locate these major cities? (this one is very hard)
   4. Can you find the major rivers and lakes?
   5. How well do you know the major land features in the United States?
5. NetState - an excellent site will all kinds of data about each state!
6. U.S. Capitols (as seen from space) - images taken from LANDSAT satellites
7. U.S. Counties - Capitol Impact provides an index of state pages. At each state page you will see a map linking to information about the counties of that state.
8. United States of America - geography and history
9. U.S. States - States web games; locate states, name states and more
10. U.S. State Images from 30 Second Topographic Data
11. U.S. Puzzle for younger students - place the states where they belong. The name of each state is given to help place them.
12. Where in the USA - students choose from three categories (u.s. capitals, cities, or landmarks) and have two minutes to answer as many as they can.

General

1. "Are We There Yet?" - report of a problem based lesson plan, use her idea to design your own lesson
2. Earth and Moon viewer - You can view either a map of the Earth showing the day and night regions at this moment, or view the Earth from the Sun, the Moon, the night side of the Earth, above any location on the planet specified by latitude, longitude and altitude, from a satellite in Earth orbit, or above various cities around the globe.
3. Earth's LandGames, Puzzles, Quizzes, Trivia - games, puzzles, quizzes, trivia
4. Geography4Kids - a mixture of Earth Science and Social Studies topics
5. Geography Dictionary and Glossary for Students - " primarily aimed at supporting secondary/senior/high school and early tertiary students who are studying Geography or related subjects such as Earth Sciences."
6. Geography Lesson Plans and Resources
7. Geography Games - Numerous games and quizzes about all areas of geography!
8. Geography Hotlist
9. Geo Net Geography games - Select US or World and then select a specific region. For each region there are six games
10. GIS from Environmental Systems Research Institute
11. Helping your child learn Geography - Ideas for activities that will use your children's play to help them learn more geography--the study of the Earth; ages 5-10
12. Landforms - pictures to help identify landforms.
13. Landforms - students activities and lessons on landforms
14. Land Formation Activities - Identify the major land forms.
15. Land types - learn about various land types.
16. National Geographic Homework Help -
17. National Geographic Xpeditions - This huge and growing site for geography educators and students contains more than a hundred original lesson plans and after-school activities for grades K-12, an outline map atlas with more than 1,800 free maps designed for printing or building Web sites, forums where teachers and students can discuss geography, and a 3-D virtual museum of geography built in the spirit of the game Myst.
18. VolcanoWorld - The Web's Premier Source of Volcano Info
19. World Explorers
20. World Geography Games - Many sites that test your knowledge on Geography.
21. World Pizza - In this project, students embrace the best of both worlds by first imagining a global pizza with ingredients from all over, and then developing a savvy, sensitive plan to market the product in a very particular place. (Microsoft lesson plan using Excel)
22. World Time: watch the night shadow move across a globe centered on your location. You can also see what the shadow looks like with any chosen country centered in the view.
23. World Travel - Learn about the continents and countries and their climates; listen to music from various countries, maps to print and more.
24. Zoom into Maps - migration, pictoral, transporation, historical and many more.

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