When studying figures from the past, providing context is key! Use these resources to help students learn about the figures themselves, but also to help students understand the times in which these people lived. Take advantage of the age of digital information - view and study digital collections of primary sources, take virtual tours of museums and historical sites, and learn about all these people!

http://www.sweetsearch.com/

This student-friendly search engine searches only the 35,000 Web sites that our staff of research experts and librarians and teachers have evaluated and approved when creating the content on findingDulcinea.

Biography page: http://www.sweetsearch.com/biographies

Social Studies page: http://www.sweetsearch.com/socialstudies

http://www.loc.gov/

This site could have you lost for days browsing through collections of free primary sources including images, maps, sound recordings, and motion pictures.

American Memory Project provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html

For younger students:

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/index.php

Their teacher site allows you to search by state standard: http://www.loc.gov/teachers/index.html

Browse archives of the Teaching with Primary Sources Journal: http://www.loc.gov/teachers/tps/journal/

Primary Source Analysis Tools: http://www.loc.gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/guides.html

http://www.archives.gov/education/

View online exhibits on a variety of topics, explore the DocsTeach tool which lets you create/modify lesson plans using primary sources, browse professional development offerings, get free ebooks (http://www.archives.gov/publications/ebooks/index.html)

https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute

Google Cultural Institute features Google's Art Project, Historical Moments, and World Wonders. Explore collections and exhibits from museums and archives from all over the world. Browse existing collections or create your own collections of digital artifacts to share with students.

http://zoomin.edc.org

Each U.S. History lesson is a document-based mini-unit that builds students' reading, writing and historical thinking skills. (Note: must sign up for an account to view lessons)

http://npgportraits.si.edu

Search more than 100,000 portrait records from the Catalog of American Portraits (CAP), a survey of American portraits in public and private collections across the United States and abroad. The CAP encompasses portraits of American subjects or by American artists, generally limited to one-of-a-kind likenesses such as paintings, sculpture, drawings, miniatures, silhouettes, and daguerreotypes.

http://www.ipl.org/

Information You Can Trust. The Internet Public Library features a searchable, subject-categorized directory of authoritative websites.

http://free.ed.gov/historysocial-studies/history/

The Federal Registry for Educational Excellence (FREE) makes it easier to find digital teaching and learning resources created and maintained by the federal government and public and private organizations.

http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/

Explore over 800,000 digitized items organized into various collections.

http://www.biography.com/people

Search over 7,000 biographies. Each biography contains quick facts, videos, images and information. Great for more modern figures, but also contains historical biographies.

https://www.google.com/cse

Add your own websites to create a customized Google Search for students.

When looking for resources on a particular person, also check for:

• Museums - birthplaces, homes, historical sites
• Universities - digital archives, collections
• State/National Organizations - libraries, archives, parks, monuments, museums

Like what you see? Let us know!

Questions? Please ask!

Email: sherry@literaryfusions.com
Website: www.literaryfusions.com
Twitter: @literaryfusions

https://www.google.com/cse/all

Create a custom search engine that will search a specific set/list of websites that you choose.