Resources for

Students and

Teachers

Lesson Plans and Curriculums

American Bar Association Division for Public Education

The Division for Public Education provides information about the law and legal issues, including resources and programs for educators, students, journalists, legal professionals, opinion leaders, and the public to advance public understanding of law and its role in society.

Annenberg Classroom

The Annenberg Classroom is a project of the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics. It provides free classroom resources including videos, games, lesson plans and timelines as well as the Annenberg Guide to the Constitution, which provides the original text and then explains it in plain language.

Ben’s Guide to the U.S. Government

Ben’s Guide to the U.S. Government, a service of the Government Publishing Office, is designed to inform students, parents, and educators about the federal government.

Bill of Rights Institute

The Bill of Rights Institute supports civic education that helps students examine the story of our country and exercise the skills of citizenship.

Center for Civic Education

The Center for Civic Education provides free and low-cost civic education resources.

Civics Break: Civics Education About the Judiciary

Civics Break, created by the Bolch Judicial Institute of Duke Law, is a civics education course designed to help learners understand the rule of law, courts, and the judicial system. It includes three modules, an optional Q&A session with judges, and a Facilitator’s Course Guide.

The Civic Trust

Founded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation to promote a broad range of efforts aimed at improving understanding of and involvement in American civic life.

Civics Renewal Network

The Civics Renewal Network is an alliance of 37 nonprofit, nonpartisan organizations that provide free online classroom resources for civics education.

Constitute

Constitute provides lesson plans to help bring the world’s constitutions into classrooms, Grades 5 and up, as a way to empower students as citizens.

Constitutional Sources Project

The Constitutional Sources Project connects American citizens to their constitutional history through comprehensive, searchable, fully-indexed, and a freely accessible digital library of historical sources related to the creation, ratification, and amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

C-SPAN Classroom

C-SPAN Classroom enhances social studies curriculums by providing teachers with structured lesson plans that examine a variety of topics and are supplemented with video clips of related C-SPAN programming.

The Dirksen Congressional Center

The Dirksen Congressional Center promotes research and scholarship to advance the public understanding of the U.S. Congress.

George Washington’s Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon is dedicated to teaching people about the life and legacies of George Washington. Its resources are designed to support further exploration into Washington’s world both in and out of the classroom.

Hawai’i Council for the Humanities

The Hawaiʻi Council for the Humanities provides teacher resources and teacher workshops that connect people with ideas that enrich lives, broaden perspectives, and strengthen communities

iCivics

Founded by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, iCivics’ civic library includes more than 260 curricular resources, digital literacy tools, professional learning materials, and educational video games

Indiana University Center on Representative Government

The Center on Representative Government is a non-partisan, educational institution that has developed an extensive array of free civics education resources and activities to improve the public’s understanding of the role of representative government, to strengthen civic engagement, and to teach the skills that are essential to a representative democracy.

King Kamehameha V Judiciary History Center

The Judiciary History Center offers schools, colleges, and the general public law-related education activities and resources.

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library’s vast digital collections in their teaching.

Monticello Digital Classroom

The Monticello Digital Classroom includes lesson plans, articles, and multimedia content for use by teachers, students, and scholars of all levels. All materials are cross-referenced, searchable, and available for download.

National Archives

The National Archives provides resources promoting civic literacy and engagement, and analyzing primary sources.

National Constitution Center

The National Constitution Center brings together people to learn about, debate, and celebrate the U.S. Constitution.

National Endowment of the Humanities

The organization’s EDSITEment! project provides comprehensive lesson plans, curricula, and teacher guides on American history, social studies and civics, government and society.

National History Day

National History Day is a nonprofit education organization improving teaching and learning of history.

NewseumED

NewseumED offers free resources to cultivate the First Amendment and media literacy skills essential to civic life. Provides standards-aligned lesson plans, videos, primary sources, virtual classes and programs.

Oyez

Oyez is free law project from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, Justia, and Chicago-Kent College of Law that offers a multimedia archive devoted to making the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone.

PBS Learning Media

PBS curated free, curriculum-aligned videos, interactives, lesson plans and more for teachers.

PBS Newshour Classroom

Provides news for students and teacher resources for grades 6–12.

Presidential Libraries

Presidential libraries offer education-related information for teachers and students.

Street Law

Street Law advances civic and law-related education to empower all people to positively transform their world.

Supreme Court Historical Society

The Supreme Court Historical Society provides resources for teachers and students on, among other things, American democracy, the Constitution, and landmark Supreme Court decisions.

Teaching American History

Teaching American History supports teachers of American history, government and civics by bringing the documents and debates of America’s past into the present through free document-based seminars, document collections both online and in print, and other resources.