This archival site makes available public papers and government investigative and research reports concerning the history of transportation in the U.S. It contains Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and Department of Transportation railroad accident investigation reports from 1911 to 1994, with more than 4,000 reports, as well as aircraft accident reports from 1934 to 1965, with more than 790 reports. "Turner, Fairbank, and MacDonald" papers contains more than 540 public papers of Thomas H. MacDonald, H.S. Fairbank, and F.C. Turner of the Bureau of Public Roads and later the Federal Highway Administration. These include reports, speeches, development plans, and memoranda. Fairbank's papers cover the period 1920 to 1954, MacDonald's from 1919 to 1952, and Turner's from 1947 to 1971. Other documents include civil aeronautics manuals; Federal Aviation Administration research reports; historical Department of Transportation orders; U.S. Coast Guard navigation and inspection circulars from the 1960s to the present; and reports from the 1924, 1926, 1930, and 1934 National Conferences on Street and Highway Safety. Each collection of materials can be searched individually.

Texts of about 300 international multilateral treaties, agreements, and conventions are available on this website, from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) to the International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides (November 2002). Originally designed to provide environmental agreements, this website now offers additional agreements, including drafts of many documents.

Materials are arranged in 10 categories: atmosphere and space; flora and fauna, biodiversity; cultural protection; diplomatic relations; general; human rights; marine and coastal; other environmental; trade and commercial relations; and rules of warfare and arms control. Most of the texts date from the post-World War II period to the present. Listings are also arranged in chronological order and users may search by keyword. There are links to approximately 120 additional sources on treaties and conventions.

A project of the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH), Verizon Thinkfinity, and the National Trust for the Humanities, EDSITEment gathers together original K-12 lesson plans and links to websites and interactive activities from around the web, in the subject areas "Arts and Culture," "Foreign Language," "Literature and Language Arts," and "History and Social Studies."

For U.S. history and social studies teachers, the heart of the site lies in the "Lesson Plans" section. Visitors can browse more than 376 lesson plans, filterable by topic, grade level, or time required to teach. Lesson plans range across all of U.S. history, and include 12 lessons designed to accompany NEH's Picturing America resources and 53 designed for its We the People program. Each plan is divided into three sections: "The Lesson," "The Basics," and "Resources." "The Lesson" lays the lesson out, including an introduction, guiding questions and learning objectives, the lesson's activities, assessment, and ideas for extending the lesson. "The Basics" gives the lesson's suggested grade level, time required, the subject areas it covers, and its authors. "Resources" rounds up required worksheets and primary sources for download.

If these lesson plans aren't enough, visitors can pick the topic "History and Social Studies" on the "Websites" page. Here, visitors can browse short annotated links to more than 219 websites, vetted by humanities specialists. (Unfortunately, this page has no dedicated search function.)

Still not enough? Visitors can also choose the topic "History and Social Studies" on the "Student Resources" page, and browse more than 124 annotated links to interactive and media features from around the web, filterable by grade level and type of resource.

EDSITEment also offers "NEH Connections," describing and linking out to teaching and learning resources funded by NEH, ranging from books and articles to professional development events, a calendar of historical events (clicking on an event links the visitor to lesson plans and other resources related to the event), and "After School" activities—five social studies and culture-related activities that students can carry out in their communities. The "Reference Shelf," under development, currently presents articles on internet browsing and assessing online resources and links to standards.

Visitors can search the entire site by keyword, grade level, subject area, and resource type using the search bar at the top right of the site. They may also sign up for the site newsletter, volunteer to write or revise lesson plans, or nominate websites for inclusion.

Overall, a valuable resource for teachers looking for ready-to-go lesson plans and guidance around the web.

Looking for resources for Constitution Day? EDSITEment collects a roundup of Constitution Day resources, including 11-item bibliography and webographies and links to relevant EDSITEment lesson plans, interactives related to the Constitution, and the full text of the Constitution in English and Spanish. The collection also links to an EDSITEment spotlight on the Constitution, highlighting more resources and providing orientation to the document and to teaching and learning more about it.

EDSITEment also looks at what led up to the creation of the Constitution (and the Articles of Confederation). In its Fourth of July feature, EDSITEment highlights more than 20 lesson plans on African Americans in the 18th and early 19th centuries, colonial protests, the Declaration of Independence, the Founders, religion's place in colonial America, and the Revolutionary War.

This lively exhibit offers images from the 1960s counterculture as seen through the lens of photographer Lisa Law's camera from 1965 to 1971. The site covers the 1960s folk and rock music scenes, California's counterculture, and commune life in New Mexico in eight chronological sections. The "Introduction" provides an entree into the era of the 1960s; "Photographic Beginnings" outlines Law's background in the music industry, her marriage to John Law, manager of the band Peter, Paul, and Mary, and the start of her photography career. "The Castle" chronicles the Laws' sojourn in a Los Angeles group house in which many artists and creative individuals like Bob Dylan and Andy Warhol rented rooms. "The Counterculture" illustrates the unconventional appearance, sexual liberation, and drugs that characterized the 1960s; "Social Activism" offers images of the avenues for members of the counterculture to express social and political beliefs through protests of the Vietnam War, racial injustice, and materialism. "Communal Living" illustrates the utopian communal lifestyles that many members of the counterculture found attractive. "Organizing Woodstock" is a unique look inside the legendary music and art festival that Law helped organize; and the "Afterword" summarizes Law's life and photography career from the mid-1970s to the present, as she continues to document and work for social causes.

Each section offers a 250-300 word summary of the theme and 4-8 photographs. A "What Else was Happening" link provides a timeline that covers the social, political, and popular culture highlights of each year from 1963 to 1973. This site includes a warning that adults might want to speak to children about the 1960s counterculture to contextualize the images on the site before allowing young children to explore it. For students and teachers interested in the popular culture and counterculture of the 1960s, this site offers compelling and colorful images.

Gilded Age Plains City: The Great Sheedy Murder Trial and the Booster Ethos of Lincoln, Nebraska tackles the issue of urban development through the lens of a nationally-followed murder case.

A document archive provides a rich variety of related primary sources—39 legal documents, 225 newspaper articles, 39 newspaper illustrations, 129 photographs, and 42 postcards. Documents range from items directly related to the Sheedy murder trial to sources depicting parts of the city or describing Lincoln culture and society.

One practice worth applauding on this site is it's loyalty to the concept of scaffolding. The first page offers links to vocabulary, an extensive list of Lincoln personages, and a similarly detailed timeline.

Selecting "Explore the City" brings up an introductory essay on Lincoln, Nebraska in the 1890s, as well as an interactive map. The map shows many buildings in red or yellow. Yellow buildings offer period images of the structure, as well as a description of its purpose. Red buildings only have the explanation. The most fascinating feature of the map is that it allows you to select a subsection of the city, such as "demimonde," "physician," "boosters," or "transportation." Each of these options alters the map so that only buildings within that particular subcategory are shown in red or yellow. This lets you see how food distribution and transportation, for example, are grouped in different parts of the city. Each subcategory also has an accompanying essay offering more on the social clime of 1890s Lincoln, Nebraska.

"Spatial Narratives" offers a series of texts on the location and nature of various city subcultures—practitioners of law, boosters, men, African Americans, women, the working class, and university students. Obviously, these subcultures overlapped both in body and in spatial terms within the city.

At this point, one might wonder where the Sheedy case comes into the picture. The third major site section "Interpretation and Narrative" introduces the murder. The narrative includes links to relevant newspaper articles.

Taken as a whole, the site is likely not particularly useful in the K-12 classroom. However, when used in pieces, it can be seen as an example of the ways in which cities develop, racial and moral tensions of the 1890s, or media "spin" of the period versus that of today.

This archive collects U.S. official documents concerning the national stance toward terrorism. Documents are sorted into several "volumes," which cover topics such as policy, the last war in Afghanistan, Nixon and the end of biowarfare programs, the reign of King Zahir (1970-1973), the 1979 Sverdlovsk anthrax controversy, the U.S. Special Force's search for bin Laden, U.S.-Taliban policy, and the air-ground transcripts of the planes lost during the 9/11 crisis.

Expect to find reports, memorandum, instructions, statements, transcripts, minutes, and more. The site and its content can be fairly dense, so it may be best to use the site to find one or two documents which are suitable for your classroom rather than having students explore it on their own.

The September 11, 2001, Web Archive is a unique resource. Here, you can visit web pages "captured in time" as they appeared on and around September 11, 2001, and 9/11's first anniversary. This allows you to see how various sectors (business, non-profit, press, etc.) reacted in web publishing, as well as the international digital response to 9/11.

Use the site to find various articles or approaches to share with your classroom, or let your students sift through the content. See what sources from Dutch news sites to George Mason University to everyday names like Scholastic and Google had to say concerning the related events as they unfolded.

Be aware that the content is not sorted by level of grade-appropriateness or for potentially offensive or emotional trigger-inducing material. Also note that the initial calendar you can access for each site is set to 2002. Click 2001 for the breaking news rather than potential anniversary commentary.

The September 11, 2001, Documentary Project represents the "shortly after" reaction of U.S. citizens and others regarding the World Trade Center, Flight 93, and Pentagon attacks of the 11th of September 2001, as gathered by ethnographers at the request of the American Folklife Center. The collection of responses started the 12th of September and continued for several months.

Here, you can listen to and/or watch nearly 200 audio and visual oral histories, access 21 written narratives—such as that of one woman who missed her train the morning of the attack and, as a result, was not in the WTC as she normally would have been—and view 45 photographs and drawings, many of the latter of which display children's perspectives. The videos are all from Naples, Italy, providing a look at 9/11 from outside of the country.

Sources can be browsed by type, title, or subject, as well as keyword searched.

Classroom Connection offers a list of Library of Congress and external related resources, as well as a grade level, state, and subject search which can show you how the collection relates to your particular curriculum standards.

Over more than 15 years, Rocky Gap High School of Rocky Gap, VA, has offered students the opportunity to participate in a history and technology project. While working on the project, students conduct oral history interviews, and archive these interviews and related photographs in a database and, in many cases, online.

The main page can be somewhat difficult to navigate. However, the largest portion of content can be found under Stories of the People. This section contains roughly 90 oral history transcripts on the lives of Bland County residents. Topics range from train rides and farm life to working in a World War II aircraft factory and religious practices. Some of the transcripts are also accompanied by photographs of the interviewee throughout his or her life.

Yet other transcripts link to collection pages which bring together related oral histories, as well as narration written by students. In some cases, video and audio versions are available in addition to the text transcripts. Topics include the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), church, death practices, farming, logging, the railroad, school life, tunnel building, and Bland County residents at war.

For more information on the project and its facilities, try the links under "Mountain Home Project."

This website is excellent as inspiration for beginning your own local history projects, as well as a fantastic resource for anyone looking for information on life in rural Virginia.

Note: The site is frequently unavailable for short bursts of time. Try again later if you reach a 404 error page.