MarcoPolo
www.wcom.com/marcopolo
This partnership between MCI WorldCom and six renowned educational organizations has produced discipline-specific educational web sites on economics, geography, humanities, mathematics, science and the arts. The MarcoPolo program provides no-cost, standards-based Internet content for the K-12 teacher and classroom. It contains links to sites that include materials to help with daily classroom planning, brief and extended lesson plans, reviewed and expert-approved links to related high-quality sites, and powerful search engines.
Great American Landmarks Adventure and Teacher’s Guide
www2.cr.nps.gov/pad/adventure/landmark.htm (Kids Adventure site)
www2.cr.nps.gov/pad/adventure/contents.htm (Teacher’s guide)
Arranged by Heritage Preservation Services, National Park Service, and National Register of Historic Places, this site contains a downloadable series of drawings that take young people on a trip through time and space to see 43 National Historic Landmarks and learn about more than 3,000 years of our country's past. The online Teacher's Guide provides ideas for creative use of the Adventure and explores the broad and recurring themes and issues suggested by it.
Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village, SmartFun Online
www.thehenryford.org//education/smartfun
The Museum has one of the most impressive collections of historic buildings and Americana that depicts transportation, manufacturing, home life, entertainment and technology. SmartFun Online is an interactive classroom resource for teachers, media specialists, and students using images, objects, and documents from the collections. The site features print and online resources; lesson plans and related curriculum content standards; an historic timeline; a map of Greenfield Village that enables you to see and learn about all of the buildings in the Village; and read stories of the Model T, the Hermitage Plantation Quarters in Greenfield Village, and colonial life in America.
Heritage Education Network (THEN)
http://histpres.mtsu.edu/then/
The Center for Historic Preservation (CHP) at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro provides training, materials, and assistance for teachers and school systems in grades K-12, in higher education, and for the out-of-school adult public on heritage-related topics. The content of THEN was compiled and developed over the past two decades by CHP and by practitioners of heritage education throughout the United States and in other countries. The site has ideas, lesson plans and activities, sources of information, and links for heritage education.
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Digital Classroom
www.archives.gov
The Digital Classroom provides reproducible archival documents and activities that correlate to national academic standards and cross-curricular connections. It offers a place for general and National History Day research, publications, educational materials published by the National Archives, information on workshops and summer institutes for educators, and opportunities for collaboration with NARA's education program.
National Park Service: Links to the Past
www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp/
The site has a unique collection of interesting and entertaining information and products related to the activities carried out by the many cultural resources programs of the NPS. These may take the form of distance learning programs, directories, databases, case studies, lesson plans, teacher's handbooks, or illustrated guidelines. Its program, Teaching with Historic Places at www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp, uses historic properties to enliven history, social studies, geography, civics, and other subjects in the classroom. Products and activities include a series of downloadable lesson plans and worksheets; guidance on using places to teach; information encouraging educators, historians, preservationists, site interpreters, and others to work together effectively; and professional development publications and training courses.
Smithsonian Institution Education
http://educate.si.edu
The Smithsonian Office of Education designed this site for educators to locate resources in the world's largest complex of museums. In addition to this central education office, most museums and research centers also have their own education departments to develop programs specific to each museum or center. For example the National Museum of American History at http://americanhistory.si.edu, has online activities from its Hands On Science Center and Hands On History room, and its Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at http://invention.smithsonian.org/home/ contains activities and experiments, and a place to meet today's inventors and learn about their "Innovative Lives."
