Online Resources for Educators: History and Social Studies

From film kits and lesson plans to the building blocks of a customized Learning Plan—texts, student tasks and teaching strategies—our resources will help you bring relevance, rigor and social emotional learning into your classroom—all for FREE.

Vermont Public and PBS have curated FREE, curriculum-aligned videos, interactives, lesson plans, and more for teachers like you.

We believe in media that inspires and entertains families of all kinds. In technology that protects privacy and supports communities. In learning tools that prepare students and teachers for success in a connected world. Discover how we're working to make the digital world better for kids and families.

These offerings encompass an extensive collection of online lesson plans, interactive activities, and multimedia materials, all tailored to various grade levels and subjects. Educators can access primary source documents, museum exhibits, and expert-curated content, allowing them to enhance their classroom instruction and engage students in rich, real-world learning experiences. The Smithsonian also hosts professional development opportunities, workshops, and webinars for teachers, fostering continuous growth and innovation in the field of education. Additionally, the Institution's museums, galleries, and research facilities serve as invaluable teaching spaces, where educators can bring their students to explore and interact with the vast and diverse world of knowledge and culture that the Smithsonian preserves and showcases.

TED-Ed is TED’s youth and education initiative. TED-Ed’s mission is to spark and celebrate the ideas of teachers and students around the world. Everything we do supports learning — from producing a growing library of original animated videos, to providing an international platform for teachers to create their own interactive lessons, to helping curious students around the globe bring TED to their schools and gain presentation literacy skills, to celebrating innovative leadership within TED-Ed’s global network of over 650,000 teachers

HippoCampus.org is a free, core academic website that delivers rich, multimedia content—videos, animations, and simulations—on general education subjects. As an open resource for personalized learning, HippoCampus.org was designed to improve access to quality education for everyone, and is powered by The NROC Project (NROC), a nonprofit organization that collaborates with secondary, postsecondary, and adult education leaders to improve student readiness, persistence, and success. NROC makes editorial and engineering investments to maintain HippoCampus.org.

Teach and learn with The Times: Resources for bringing the world into your classroom

As part of its mission to advance excellent teaching in American schools, Annenberg Learner funds and distributes educational video programs – with coordinated online and print materials – for the professional development of K-12 teachers. Many programs are also intended for students in the classroom and viewers at home, with videos that exemplify excellent teaching. Annenberg Learner also partners with impactful organizations to provide other means of achieving this goal. As part of the Annenberg Foundation, Learner supports the Foundation’s mission to encourage the development of more effective ways to share ideas and knowledge

Engage with National Geographic Explorers and transform learning experiences through live events, free maps, videos, interactives, and other resources.

JSTOR open access resources.
JSTOR’s mission is to improve access to knowledge and education for people around the world. We partner with libraries, museums, and publishers to reduce costs, extend access, and preserve scholarship for the future. We do this because we believe in the power of knowledge to change the world for the better.

Online Database and eBooks, including Udemy, available to all Vermontians, provided by the Vermont Department of Libraries.