The partner organizations in the Civics Renewal Network have gathered resources that will help teachers and parents implement effective distance learning this school year. These resources cover grades K-12 and offer a variety of activities to keep students engaged in learning outside the classroom. All are free and online. Check back often as we will continue to add resources.

ABOTA Foundation

With Inspiring Civics lessons, students will be introduced to civic participation, understand how it impacts their lives, and create strategies for engaging with civic issues. Grades 7-12.

ABA Division for Public Education

The American Bar Association Division for Public Education has developed a series of resources on the history and significance of the 19th Amendment — commemorating the centennial of ratification of the amendment — that are available here, including a toolkit for use with students.

In addition, find lesson plans and activities for elementary, middle and high school students.

Annenberg Classroom

More than 60 engaging videos on landmark Supreme Court cases, amendments, the Bill of Rights, and constitutional concepts include primary sources, commentary from historians, legal scholars and Supreme Court justices. Most run about 25 minutes and have subtitles in English and Spanish available. Lesson plans are available and can be adapted for long-distance learning.

The Annenberg Guide to the Constitution: What It Says, What It Means pairs the original text of each article and amendment with an explanation of what it means.

Engaging games teach students about the Bill of Rights, media literacy, separation of powers, the court system, and how a bill becomes a law.

Annenberg Learner

Annenberg Learner provides free content and resources for K-12 educators, students, and families at learner.org. Search classroom resources by grade levels and subject areas. Some video resources also include coordinated online materials, such as user guides, downloadable textbooks, labs and interactives, and more.

Bill of Rights Institute

The Bill of Rights Institute is meeting the learning needs of teachers and students during the coronavirus crisis. Always-free digital learning tools include:

Center for Civic Education

We the People Open Course
This course takes you from the philosophical foundations of the U.S. Constitution through the modern interpretation and application of its ideals. You will find videos of noted scholars explaining key aspects of the Constitution and online exercises to check for understanding. The course follows the We the People: The Citizen & the Constitution Level 3 (high school) textbook, which has been used throughout the country to further understanding of our government and its fundamental principles.

Strengthening Democracy in America
Strengthening Democracy in America is a collection of free courses featuring video interviews with noted scholars. These courses will deepen your understanding of the American political system and your rights and responsibilities in it. The first two courses provide a framework for understanding the history and development of the system. Subsequent courses focus on its strengths and weaknesses and means of enhancing the strengths and diminishing the weaknesses. The courses are open to anyone and can be completed at your own pace.

Center on Representative Government

Engaging Congress is a free Civics/Government/US History primary source based interactive that is intended for distance learning scenarios as well as in-class use. It can be played through the Web or downloaded from Google Play or the App Store. Visit engagingcongress.org for a “How To Video,” teachers resources, and the link for web play.

Constituting America

Remote Classroom Presentations: Founder, Co-President and actress Janine Turner (“Northern Exposure,” “Friday Night Lights,” “Cliffhanger”), Juliette Turner (“Our Constitution Rocks” author), Mr. Terry Cherry (past president of the National Council for the Social Studies), Cathy Gillespie, Jeanette Kraynak and/or our contest winners will provide a nonpartisan, age-appropriate conversation about the Constitution for any educational department: drama, music, government and history, English classes and more are all welcome! Go here to learn more.

Constitutional Rights Foundation

Civics on Call provides classroom-ready lessons on issues of the day, including containing the coronavirus. All the lessons include a fact-based article on the news event, then pose questions for writing and discussion.

Constitutional Sources Project (ConSource)

Teachers can take advantage of our lesson plans, including our Constitution for Kids resource, as well as videos from events we’ve hosted with famous historians and legal minds. As always, they can also turn to our library for free, annotated primary source documents on the Founding era.

Core Knowledge Foundation

The Core Knowledge Foundation provides free resources available for download for preschool through grade 8. The curriculum includes the language arts, history, geography and science.

C-SPAN Classroom

With many schools continuing distance learning, you will find several new C-SPAN Classroom lessons and resources that can be easily implemented into a virtual classroom. These resources include engaging strategies such as digital choice boards, hyperdocs and structured research projects.

Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate

Introducing Pathways to Environmental Justice – an exciting new virtual field trip for elementary and middle school students. In this one-hour session hosted and led by Kennedy Institute education staff, students in grades 4 through 8 learn about the challenges posed by climate change and the need to transition to a more sustainable and resilient economy. They will work together as Senators to build a bill that provides assistance and environmental justice for three distinct groups of people affected by climate change: frontline and vulnerable communities, fossil fuel workers, and young people. Schedule your virtual visit here.

The Institute hosts a Civcs at Home page filled with resources and activities for students. These include Make a Difference activities for children and families to encourage young people to think about how they can make a difference in their communities and the world. About the Senate activities teach about the work senators do, how they work together, and some traditions they follow.

Florida Joint Center for Citizenship

Civics in Real Life is a simple to use resource that ties in to what’s going on today. On this page, updated regularly through the school year, you will find concise resources that explore a civics concept or idea connected to current events. Simply click on the resource to download the PDF and share with your students!

Civics 360 is a comprehensive guide to middle school civics. Civics is all around us. Being informed about civics takes work. There is a lot to know about the government and how “We the People” interact with the government and each other. Use the resources in the modules to enhance your civic knowledge and skills.

George Washington’s Mount Vernon

Brand new for 2020! Mount Vernon is offering Distance Learning Programs for K-12 classrooms. Each 60-minute program is appropriate for up to 40 students and is designed to deepen student understanding of George Washington and life in the 18th century by virtually connecting students with Mount Vernon experts and primary sources. Two programs launched in September (Virtual Guided Tour and Be Washington Facilitation), and we will launch two more in October (Primary Source Analysis and Lessons in Leadership).

Mount Vernon in Virtual Reality brings Mount Vernon alive in a whole new way. Tour over 50 locations, including every room of the Mansion, gardens, outbuildings, and gristmill and access stories from Mount Vernon’s interpreters, curators, and preservation staff. Mount Vernon in VR is available now on Google Cardboard and coming soon to Facebook Oculus.

We have carefully selected some of Mount Vernon’s vast digital offerings that can be useful in this new style of teaching. You will find Digital Primary Sources as well as Interactive Learning and Media, including videos, games, quizzes, and activities that can be completed independently or as a group.

Online Activities for Kids
Find crafts and projects, activities and worksheets, and dynamic videos.

George Washington’s Rules of Civility in the Age of COVID-19: In 1745, a young George Washington copied down a set of rules in his workbook. His aim was to learn how to properly conduct himself in society. He took his examples from the writings of a 16th-century Jesuit priest. The rules Washington recorded still resonate today as we learn how to navigate the health crisis the world is now facing while trying to maintain civil behavior.

iCivics

Whether you’re an educator or a parent, iCivics’ free civics resources provide enrichment activities and easy-to-use lessons to keep learning going at home. Now, more than ever, it is critical to help our youth build important civic knowledge and skills to help them understand how individuals and communities can work together to solve local, national, and global problems.

Remote Learning Toolkit for Educators and Families
For Educators: A new Game Odyssey turns free iCivics games into an exciting adventure for civics knowledge, specially designed for remote learning play. Students will play their way through a series of games each week, claim badges, share their successes, and learn important civics lessons on their journey. The Game Odyssey aims to provide students with a goal to complete each week and help them stay motivated to learn during these difficult times.

For Families: iCivics has created manageable, bite-sized learning and engagement activities that children can enjoy with minimal supervision. Parents can use a series of weekly civic learning plans or use grab-and-go ideas for the whole family, including a downloadable BINGO card and for younger learners (7-10 yrs old).

With the 2020 election continuing on, Win the White House and Cast Your Vote both help students learn about how the U.S. election system works and the important role citizens play in our democracy

The coronavirus has generated many rumors and false reports. Help your students learn to spot false reporting and sharpen their news literacy skills by playing Newsfeed Defenders.

National Archives

What Happens in Washington?
K-2 students will explore Washington, D.C., as the seat of our nation’s government, as a tourist destination where people can learn about the history of the United States, and as a place where people can go to make their voices heard. Throughout the program, students will search for American symbols and analyze photographs of important D.C. destinations. Request your program today!

Rightfully Hers: Sign your class up for one of our free, interactive Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote distance learning programs. Programs are available for elementary, middle school, and high school students. Using the founding documents of the United States and historical records at the National Archives, students will determine how and why women fought for the right to vote. Students will explore the challenges suffragists faced and discover why the fight for women’s voting rights persisted even after the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

Elementary Age At-Home Learning Activities
These activities and ideas focus on skills such as sequencing and finding clues in historical objects, and topics such as symbols and national monuments. The activities include: Genealogy Activities; From Seeds to Harvest; Democracy and Symbols of Citizenship; Was Laura Goodale an Early American Historian?; Investigating a Women’s Suffrage Photograph; and Finding American Symbols.

At-Home Learning Activities for Middle School
Check out these online activities and lesson plans from around the National Archives and Presidential Libraries for teaching civics or American history to Middle School students. Activities include: The Legislative Race, Checks and Balances in Action, A President’s Day, We Shall Overcome: March on Washington, Introduction to the Domino Theory and Containment in Vietnam, and more.

At-Home Learning Activities for High School
Check out these online resources from around the National Archives and Presidential Libraries for teaching American history or government to high school students. Resources include: The Legislative Process: Congress at Work, World on the Brink: The Cuban Missile Crisis, The War in Vietnam – A Story in Photographs, The Impact of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Nixon Visits China, The Space Race: Project Mercury, and more.

DocsTeach.org: DocsTeach is the online tool for teaching with documents from the National Archives. Teachers can access primary source-based learning activities and assign them to students to complete online. Students can complete activities and research primary sources on a variety of topics spanning American history. Learn more here.

Through Founders Online, you can read and search through thousands of documents to and from George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison and see firsthand the growth of democracy and the birth of the Republic. Their letters and journals are a kind of “first draft” of the Charters of Freedom.

National Constitution Center

Constitutional Exchanges connect middle school, high school and college students online to practice civil dialogue skills; apply critical thinking and active listening; and learn about the Constitution and how it affects their lives. All programs are offered for free and are a unique way to build constitutional knowledge through live interactive classes and the NCC’s acclaimed online learning platform, the Interactive Constitution.

Constitutional Exchanges are offered in three ways:
On-demand sessions where teachers can schedule an online constitutional conversation between a scholar and their students only.
Open source public sessions for teachers, students and parents to join a constitutional conversation from anywhere in the United States.
Mixed grade level public sessions with special guests who introduce additional constitutional topics that are different from the week’s theme.
Learn more here.

NEH’s EDSITEment

All lessons are Google classroom compatible.

BackStory: Forgotten Flu–America and the 1918 Pandemic. This episode of “BackStory takes listeners into the flu pandemic of 1918 that killed nearly 675,000 people in the U.S. Consider the essential question: How do the measures taken by health officials in 1918 and 1919 compare to contemporary responses to pandemics? An audio recording, a listening guide, and connections to resources for investigating pandemics in world history are provided.

Using Primary Sources in Digital and Live Archives: A teacher’s guide

Digital Humanities and Online Learning: The NEH has compiled a collection of digital resources for K-12 and higher education instructors who teach in an online setting. The resources in this teacher’s guide range from videos and pocasts to digitized primary sources and interactive activities and games as well as resources for online instruction.

Media Resources: EDSITEment provides access to NEH-funded media resources, including videos, podcasts, lectures, interactives for the classroom, and film projects. Each resource includes questions to prompt analysis, connections to other NEH-related resources, and links to related EDSITEment lessons and materials.

A More Perfect Union: This teacher’s guide brings together EDSITEment resources in history, civics, literature, arts and culture that promote a deeper understanding of American history and culture and that advance civics education and knowledge of the core principles of U.S. government.

Spanish Language Resources: This teacher’s guide compiles some of the best online resources for teaching Spanish to students new to the language as well as to heritage and native speakers.

NewseumED

Evaluating Information About Coronavirus
NewseumED is here to help you evaluate information about coronavirus. Using the ESCAPE strategy, we have developed six quick and easy activities to quiet the news noise and help you find quality information about the current public health situation. This activity guide can be downloaded at NewseumED.org.

Using the First Amendment During Chaotic Events
Help students understand the choices journalists make when deciding what to report in unusual situations with our virtual class, Covering a Catastrophe. Participants discover the challenges of sorting fact from rumor, accessing information and possible conflicts between personal and professional ethics for journalists covering catastrophic breaking news. Participants will examine real-life case studies from 9/11 and other disasters, applying the principles they’ve learned through a process of debate and discussion.

Free Virtual Classes for Your School or Community!
Stuck at home and want to learn something new? The Freedom Forum is here to help! Whether you’re across the world or right next door, our NewseumED teachers are ready to lead live, virtual classes with your students or community group on media literacy and First Amendment topics. All classes are free of charge. Check out our list of classes and booking information here.

Share My Lesson

Remote Learning Community: Preparing for the Coronavirus

Street Law

Street Law has developed a list of resources and suggested learning strategies for at-home learning.

TeachingAmericanHistory.org

A list of curated resources, including webinars. More will be posted every few days.

U.S. Courts

Civics for Civic Engagement in the Federal Courts
Distance learning activities become civics for civic engagement when federal judges bring the rule of law, separation of powers, judicial independence, and jury service into students’ daily life. Student voice is incorporated into every activity. Teachers and students can explore the pillars of literacy: rule of law, separation of powers, and judicial independence. With the guidance of federal judges and attorney volunteers in virtual court hearings, students learn and practice civil discourse skills as the foundation of effective dispute resolution in the law and in life.

Judges, Lawyers Bring Life Skills to Virtual Classroom Activities: High school teachers can bring real-life civics into their virtual lessons when they invite federal judges and volunteer attorneys to facilitate a civil discourse and decision-making simulation with students at home or in the classroom. Simulations that feature legal skills as life skills in advocacy and jury deliberations are among the offerings on a menu of distance-learning activities.

Court Shorts: Rule of Law
In a five-minute video, federal judges explain how the rule of law protects individual rights and well-being in everyday situations like buying a breakfast sandwich, reading personal mail, and investing in the stock market. The rule of law also means that judges follow the Constitution even when they have to make unpopular decisions. The Court Shorts series on courts and the Constitution is for teens and adults who want to understand current events through the lens of the Constitution. Watch other civics education videos here.

From Suffragist Sashes to Antiwar Armbands
In a 19th Amendment video, an unlikely connection is made between two rights activists from different eras. Suffragette Virginia Minor and Vietnam War protester Mary Beth Tinker were separated by 100 years, but their passions came together in the legal history of the nation and of St. Louis, where they each worked through the courts to make social change. The video asks viewers to consider the role of the courts and the extraordinary impact that ordinary people can have on society.

Youth Leadership Initiative

E-Congress: Looking for an interactive way to teach about the legislative branch? The Youth Leadership Initiative’s E-Congress program allows students to learn about Congress by writing original legislation and following it through the lawmaking process.
First Freedom Wall: The digital First Freedom Wall was created in partnership with American Evolution in order to emphasize the beginnings of self-government at Jamestown in 1619. This program connects classrooms across the country in discussions of American politics stressing the need for civil discourse and debate. The digital First Freedom Wall models appropriate use of social media and develops critical thinking skills.
Democracy Corps: The YLI Democracy Corps answers students’ questions about why we have a democracy and how they can be involved in it. Students interact with local political leaders, deliberate solutions to real problems and influence public policy related to contemporary issues.