17 Iconic Newspaper Front Pages in 20th Century History

IJR, a news site, has an article with "17 Newspaper Front Pages that Depict the Most Iconic Days in 20th Century History". They include the Titanic, VE Day, The first Atomic Bomb, JFK's assassination, 9/11 and more. 

This could be a good resource for history and social studies classes to use. 

Take a look. 

Just an FYI to teachers - the site also covers political news and has sponsored links on the bottom that may not be appropriate for young students. 

Explore the Grand Canyon - right from your classroom

Grand Canyon National Park offers free distance learning programs for classrooms, including virtual field trips, lessons aligned to national and state standards, explorations and more. There are lesson resources and DVDs for loan to teachers.

The Grand Canyon National Park’s Distance Learning Program is a great resource for schools to let their students explore one of the most famous national landmarks. 

The students get to talk with a park ranger online and learn all about the Grand Canyon.

You can find out more in the press release below. 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                       MEDIA CONTACT:

Jan. 08, 2015                                                                                       Chris Fiscus

(602) 417-1329

cfiscus@mosesinc.com

Visit Grand Canyon Without Leaving Classroom

Technology provides students with virtual experience of the national park

GRAND CANYON – Students now have the opportunity to visit the iconic steep views of Grand Canyon without ever leaving the comfort of their classrooms. All they need is curiosity, Skype or an IP connection.

It can be a major undertaking to physically bring students to the Grand Canyon. But thanks to technology, classrooms everywhere can easily visit through Grand Canyon National Park’s Distance Learning Program.

In 2014, the free program reached about 4,000 students in 26 states.

“We really can connect with just about anyone,” said Amala Posey, distance learning coordinator for Grand Canyon National Park. “A lot of kids can’t get to the Grand Canyon anytime soon, but we can bring the canyon to them.”

Posey points out the curriculum is designed to complement what students are learning in their classrooms, such as geology or ecology. “If you’re studying plate tectonics, why don’t you use Grand Canyon as your subject matter?”

The distance learning program produces curriculum-based education programs for students, but is also used to connect with college students, nature centers and adult learners. The program is used by K-12 students, and more specifically those in third through sixth grade. Each program puts park rangers face-to-face with students.

Eight different programs are offered to schools, including the popular, “Ask a Ranger,” session where students spend time with a ranger discussing Grand Canyon ecology, geology and human history. Other sessions focus on ancient life in the canyon, fossils, or summing up the last 12,000 years – in one hour.

A recent session began with an aerial view of the canyon before taking students inside.  Rangers explained the canyon’s rich history and moved down into the Colorado River, giving students the experience of hitting rough rapids on a river trip.

The Grand Canyon Association, the official non-profit partner of Grand Canyon National Park, helped make the program a reality, giving more than $100,000 to supply the technology that makes it all possible.

“The kids are sitting in New York and all of a sudden they’re 2,000 miles away at the canyon and they say ‘ahhhhhhh’ when they first see it,” said Jacob Fillion, branch chief for resource education and international program coordinator for Grand Canyon National Park.

Past classroom sessions included schools in Canada, Mexico and most recently, Germany. The hope for the national park and Grand Canyon Association is to expand the program to other countries worldwide.

Response from students and teachers has been positive. One student convinced his family to vacation at a national park after participating in a session. “That’s why we are doing it,” Fillion said. “These kids are really connecting with the national parks in their neighborhood.”

More than 200 schools visit the Grand Canyon each year, and rangers travel all over the state thanks to Grand Canyon Association funding. But the distance learning program puts rangers and the canyon within reach of any classroom. You can support this program and others that help Grand Canyon National Park at www.grandcanyon.org.

About the Grand Canyon Association:

Founded in 1932, the Grand Canyon Association (GCA) is the National Park Service’s official nonprofit partner raising private funds to benefit Grand Canyon National Park. The GCA operates retail shops and visitor centers within the park and provides premier educational opportunities about the natural and cultural history of the region. The GCA works to help preserve and protect Grand Canyon National Park by cultivating support, education and understanding of the park.

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Clouds Over Cuba - intense interactive history lesson about Cuban Missile Crisis

Clouds Over Cuba is a new interactive history lesson about the Cuban Missile Crisis. It is a multimedia documentary on the Cuban Missile crisis and was just released, 50 years to the day that JFK learned that the Soviets were building missile sites in Cuba.

The project was developed by the Martin Agency for the JFK Presidential Library and Museum. This group also produced "We Choose the Moon" web site about the space race.

The interactive film has archival footage and goes through the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis and how it almost ended with nuclear war. There is a huge amount of information and resources available including the 26 minute documentary film and in-depth information on different topics, photos, actual documents and audio recordings and more. There are interviews with experts on each topic also.

The really interesting parts of this project include a digital dossier that will save any material you view so that you can access it at any time, including via smartphone. You can also sync your iCal and Google Calendars with it and you will get notifications of the 13 most critical days of the crisis and even virtually attend meetings held on those days about the situation.

There is also an additional film that looks at what life today might be like if nuclear war had occurred instead of the actual resolution to the crisis.

This is an excellent project and is a great resource.

Even if you are not a teacher or student of history, this is a site to check out. http://www.cloudsovercuba.com/

Google Cultural Institute - explore and learn about history in a new way

This week Google announced 42 new exhibitions in the Google Cultural Institute. They are a collection of online historical exhibitions, that tell the stories behind major events of the last 100 years. Events include D-Day, the Holocaust, Apartheid, and the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

There are 42 exhibitions on here and they were all created by Google, museums, and cultural foundations. There are letters, manuscripts, video interviews and much more.

The thing that sets these apart from other historical collections is that they include more of the human side of the events and dive into different perspectives. This is a great resource for history classes.

Each exhibition features a narrative which links the archive material together to unlock the different perspectives, nuances and tales behind these events. Among others you’ll see:
Tragic love at Auschwitz - the story of Edek & Mala, a couple in love who try to escape Auschwitz
Jan Karski, Humanity’s hero - first-hand video testimony from the man who attempted to inform the world about the existence of the Holocaust
Faith in the Human Spirit is not Lost - tracing the history of Yad Vashem’s efforts to honor courageous individuals who attempted to rescue Jews during the Holocaust
Steve Biko - a 15-year-old’s political awakening in the midst of the Apartheid movement featuring nine documents never released in the public domain before
D-Day - details of the famous landings including color photographs, personal letters and the D-Day order itself from Admiral Ramsay
The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II - an account of the 1953 Coronation including color photographs
Years of the Dolce Vita - a look at the era of the “good life” in Italy including the fashion, food, cars and culture

The Google Cultural institute also includes the Art Project and World Wonders collections. These collections all help to preserve historical material and make it more accessible to the world.

These are excellent resources for educators to use with their students.

Giza 3D - great, interactive 3D recreation of the Great Pyramids

Gaza 3D is a very cool project that recreates the Great Pyramids in 3D online to view in your web browser.   It is a collaboration between the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Harvard University, and Dassault Systems (who make lots of great products including CATIA CAD systems).

The project is historically accurate and based on scholarly data. Documents from an expedition at the Giza pyramids were digitized and used to create the simulation.

There is a guided interactive tour on the site through 10 different areas on the Giza plateau with photos, object galleries and links to historical documents. You can zoom around the areas and click on object for more information.

This is a great resource for teachers and students studying the Great Pyramids in history or engineering classes to be able to explore them online. There is a tremendous amount of information here and it is a fun way to explore the Giza plateau.

Check it out: http://giza3d.3ds.com/#discover



Technical Note: You have to download a plugin to use it (the site will link you to it) and on Mac you will need to use Firefox in 32-bit mode. A broadband internet connection is also strongly recommended.

WhatWasThere - historical photos linked to Google Maps - visit the past!

WhatWasThere is an excellent resource for geography, history, and fun. It connects historical photos to Google Maps, letting you see what places looked like in the past. You can tour locations, browse photos and even upload your own historical photos.

This is a great way to explore the world historically, or just take a look at what your hometown looked like in the past. Social Studies, History, and Geography classes could use this as learning activities or projects.

Here is a photo of the Frisbee Pie Company from the early 1900's. Their pie plate throwing contest led to the original Frisbee.

PowerPoint Palooza - over 220 PowerPoints on History/Social Studies

PowerPoint Palooza is a site that has over 220 PowerPoint presentations from teachers and students on History and Social Studies topics, that you can download and edit and use in your classroom (just give credit to the original creator).

This is a great resource for teachers and students to find some presentations on different topics in history. While I don't advocate teaches do lots of lecture, they can be used effectively in a classroom.

CIA World Factbook - excellent resource about countries of the world

The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) World Factbook is an incredible resource about the countries of the world. It's free and available online and you can also download a copy for offline viewing and access. Older versions (back to 2000) are also available, which can be good for history teachers looking for older information.

The site has information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities. The Reference tab includes: maps of the major world regions, as well as Flags of the World, a Physical Map of the World, a Political Map of the World, and a Standard Time Zones of the World map.. It's a great resource to find out information about the countries of the world and the CIA is constantly updating it.

Check it out and share it with your students. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

NationStates - free nation simulation game - create and run your own country

NationStates is a nation simulation game that allows you to create your own country with your own politics and ideas and then care for its people, "or oppress them".

You can also interact with other countries, participate in a type of united nations, and run your country as you see fit. There is a news and forum section also to share and get ideas and information.

This is a great way for students to really explore politics and government.

Here's a spotlight page on one of the countries.

National Geographic releases images of Titanic site

National Geographic has released new images of the wreckage site of the RMS Titanic. The images are mosaics, made up of thousands of images from sonar and photos, in high res. It shows everything as a whole, versus small individual areas.

The images are available in the print edition of National Geographic, on their website, or in the iPad edition of the magazine.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/04/titanic/titanic-photography

These images are a great resource for teachers and students studying the tragedy.

At 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912, the “unsinkable” R.M.S. Titanicdisappeared beneath the waves, taking with her 1,500 souls. One hundred years later, new technologies have revealed the most complete—and most intimate—images of the famous wreck.

Source: The Verge




Related:

Wind Power interactive - great resource from NatGeo

National Geographic Education - teacher resources

Sea Monsters - Nat Geo - ancient sea creatures

Animal Facts from Nat Geo - great resource

Pearltree - Ben's Guide to US Government - great resource for K12

Pearltrees is a great, free site I wrote about in January that lets you organize web content in a visual pattern. There is a Chrome browser extension that makes it easy to add sites to your tree. Trees can be shared and even worked on collaboratively.

A member of my PLN (sorry, can't remember who now and I forgot to make a note of it) just shared a great Pearltree: "Ben's Guide to the U.S. Government for Kids."

The resources are sorted by grades: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12 and there is a page about Ben and a Parent and Educator section. Each section has information, links and resources about the US Government. This is a great resource for anyone teaching, or learning, about the US Government and how it works. 

Here's the main page for 9-12:

This is a great example of how a tool like Pearltrees can be used to create educational resources for students (or even have students create them as a project)

Panoramic Views of 7 Wonders of the World - great education resource

Panoramic Views of 7 Wonders of the World is a great resource for sharing these great places with students. The panoramic views are wonderful and very easy to use on your computer. You can change your view just by moving your cursor around.

Each image only takes about 30 sec to load and then you are ready to go.

This is a great way to show students some wonderful things in the world without having to go through airport security (or take out a 2nd mortgage for the trip).

Educational Poster - Timeline of Everything

The Timeline of Everything poster is a 36" x 24", full color poster that is a visual demonstration of 10 billion years, compared to 1 billion years, compared to 100 million years, etc. There are 9 time lines, each 1/10th of the length of the previous one. Each time line has significant or intriguing events in the history of the universe, from galaxies forming 13.2 billion years ago to Albert Einstein proposing the theory of special relativity in 1905.

These posters can be used to discuss history and get your students engaged and interested in history.

They are free until the end of today (October 11th.) The original price is $9.99

Today in History - manned spaceflight and the Civil War - free resources

Today is the 50th Anniversary of 1st Human Spaceflight and the 150th Anniversary of the start of the US Civil War.

Google's Doodle is about the 50th Anniversary of the 1st Human Spaceflight.

Here are some resources about this historic event, along with other resources about manned spaceflight:

NASA's Page on Yuri Gagarin - news article from the event, archived video, and summary of his flight.

Russian Archives Online - biography of Yuri Gagarin and history of his historic mission. 

First Orbit - site tracks Gagarin's mission and includes transcripts of his communications with mission control. Includes a "video" of the mission as seen from the International Space Station, along with actual mission audio and news transcripts. 

Today, 150 years ago, the Civil War began at Fort Sumter. Here are some resources about the US Civil War:

Civil War Traveler - this site has information about all of the historic sites from the Civil War that you can visit, with historic information and travel help. Great for learning about the Civil War and for planning a trip to historic places. 

Internet Modern History Sourcebook from Fordham University - links, articles and historical documents

History Channel - interactive timeline, videos, links and more. 

Social Studies for Kids - links, articles, and more - written kid-friendly

Using "Today in History" is a great way to talk about different topics and events with your students in any classroom. 

CBS News - Inside the FBI interactive

CBS News has a great interactive site on the FBI. The site includes the command structure, with links to more descriptions about each position, changes in the FBI, triumphs and disasters, history of the FBI, major cases, and more.

It is a great resource for history and criminal justice teachers to use with their students.

The Avalon Project from Harvard - documents in law, history and diplomacy

The Avalon Project is a site from Harvard University that contains thousands of documents relevant to Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government. These documents also include links to supporting documents that were referred to in the text.

The documents are sorted by date range and go all the way back to 4000BC. The documents are fully searchable and are also sorted by collections such as American Revolution, Jefferson Papers, Geneva Convention, the Middle East, and more. There are even transcripts of witness testimony in the Nuremberg Trials. Pretty amazing stuff.

This is a priceless resource for any educator or student, teaching or learning, reading or researching these topics. These documents are primary sources and can be used for a variety of learning.

Panoramic Views of 7 Wonders of the World

Panoramic Views of 7 Wonders of the World is a great resource for sharing these great places with students. The panoramic views are wonderful and very easy to use on your computer. You can change your view just by moving your cursor around.

Each image only takes about 30 sec to load and then you are ready to go.

HSI - Historical Scene Investigation

Riding the wave of the CSI craze, HSI - Historical Scene Investigation is a ingenious way to teach history. The site was created by a consortium of colleges and the US Library of Congress in is based on Social Studies/History standards.

There are 13 "open cases" for teachers to choose from, with topics such as children in the civil war, the atomic bomb, and the Boston massacre.

Each case poses a question about the topic and has resources for both teachers and students. Students then use the resources on the site to answer the question(s) posed at the beginning of the case.

This is a great resource for teachers to incorporate more project based learning and critical thinking into their classrooms. The site has come up with some great topics and provides excellent resources for the students to use. One of my colleagues who teaches history thought it was great and is using some of cases right now.