Web Resources for Teachers

National Air and Space Museum (NASM) Resources

Classroom Resources

http://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-learn/educator-resources/

Online classroom activities, lesson plans, and primary sources

Time and Navigation Website

http://timeandnavigation.si.edu/

This is the companion website to the NASM’s newest exhibition

How Things Fly Website

http://howthingsfly.si.edu/

An interactive website that teaches about the four forces of flight.

Cold War and the Space Race at the Smithsonian

Space Race

http://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/gal114/gal114.htm

This online exhibition is from 2002, not fancy—but it has good information.

Fifty Years of Human Space Flight

http://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/gal114/50years/

This exhibit examines both the launching of the first human beings into space in 1961.

Lunar Vehicles

http://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/gal112/index.cfm

Pictures of vehicles used for lunar exploration

Cold War Planes

http://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/uhc/es_cold_war_aviation.cfm

This links to pictures and information about Cold War planes, including the top-secret, stealthy SR-71 Blackbird, the world's fastest jet-propelled aircraft,.

Space artifacts at Udvar-Hazy

http://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/uhc/es_human_spaceflight.cfm

This links to space artifacts, including the Mobile Quarantine Facility that was used for NASA astronauts returning from the Moon.

Out of this World: Art of the Space Age

http://airandspace.si.edu/events/spaceage/index.htm

This exhibition covers the years 1957 – 1992. It includes art, video clips and pictures of objects.

Apollo Space Program On-line Conference (archived)

http://www.smithsonianconference.org/apollo/

This conference is on topics that range from politics, technology and popular culture

Smithsonian.com (Smithsonian Magazine)

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/topics/Time-Cold_War.html

Articles about the cold war

Fast Attacks and Boomers

http://americanhistory.si.edu/subs/history/index.html

On line exhibit about submarines in the Cold War (National Museum of American History)

National Air and Space Pinterest Boards covering the 1950s=1990s.

http://pinterest.com/airandspace/today-in-history-1950s/

http://pinterest.com/airandspace/today-in-history-1960s/

http://pinterest.com/airandspace/today-in-history-1970s/

http://pinterest.com/airandspace/today-in-history-1980s/

http://pinterest.com/airandspace/today-in-history-1990s/

Other Smithsonian Sites

Engaging Students with Primary Sources

http://historyexplorer.si.edu/PrimarySources.pdf

This is an excellent reference guide from the National Museum of American History.

The Presidency and the Cold War

http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/coldwar/coldwar.html

This on-line exhibition from the National Portrait Gallery is interactive and has a great deal of information.

Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies

http://smithsonianeducation.org/educators/index.html

Links to student learning sites, suggested reading lists, all Smithsonian Museum Education Dept. websites

Smithsonian Education: Lesson Plans: History and Culture

http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/history_culture.html

Lesson plans and ideas organized by subject and grade, searchable by keyword as well

IdeaLabs: Mr. President

http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/students/idealabs/mr_president.html

A quick look through the Presidents with dates, pictures, and important facts

History Explorer

http://historyexplorer.si.edu/home/

Smithsonian's History Explorer was developed by the National Museum of American History in partnership with the Verizon Foundation to offer hundreds of free, innovative online resources for teaching and learning American history

The Object of History: Behind the Scenes with the Curators of the NMAH

http://www.objectofhistory.org/

Sponsored by the National Museum of American History, this site provides lesson plans based on objects within NMAH’s collection

National Museum of Natural History: Classroom Materials http://www.mnh.si.edu/education/teachersandclassrooms.html

This is a portal to all the education materials offered by the National Museum of Natural History

On-line Conference produced by the Smithsonian (archived)

http://www.smithsonianconference.org/

This is a portal to all the online conferences produced by the Smithsonian on a number of topics.

Non-Smithsonian sites

PBS Teachers: Social Studies

http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/

Free digital resources for educators

Federal Resources for Education Excellence

http://free.ed.gov/

An easy-to-use database arranged by subject and topic with links to primary sources.

Teaching with Documents: The National Archives

http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/index.html

The National Archives website explains how to incorporate primary documents into lesson plans and contains reproducible copies of primary documents you can use in your classroom as well as analysis worksheets for students.

The Learning Page…especially for Teachers (Library of Congress)

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

This page gives lesson plans, activities, feature presentations, learning games and puzzles, and access to over 10 million searchable primary sources.

Virtual Reference Shelf – Selected Web Resources (Library of Congress)

http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/virtualref.html

This useful site features list of reference material useful to teachers such as online calculators, almanacs, abbreviation and acronym finders, subject encyclopedias, and statistics databases.

Reference and User Services Association: A Division of the American Library Association

http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/history/resources/pubs/usingprimarysources

A guide on how to find primary sources from a number of collections on the web.

National History Day

http://www.nhd.org/

A great way to get your students involved in history.

Non-Smithsonian Cold War sites

The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, Diplomacy

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/coldwar.asp

Includes transcripts of important and landmarking documents that "legalized" major events of the Cold War. Part of the Avalon Project at Yale.

Navy Museum

http://usnavymuseum.org/Education.asp

Educational resource page about the Cold War

Links to Presidential Libraries. Links are to relevant lesson plans, where possible.

http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/education/teacher_resources.html

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/coldwar

http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/The-Cold-War.aspx

http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Space-Program.aspx

http://www.lbjlibrary.org/education

A search for Space Race yields a number of primary sources

http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/forteachers/index.php

http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/forkids/speechesforkids/moonlanding.php

http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/museum/EduCenter09/education_index.html

http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/education/resources.phtml

http://www.reaganfoundation.org/lesson-plans-overview.aspx

Easy to search for Cold War Lessons

http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/

Putting Cold War into the search box yields a number of primary sources

NASA (a few selected links)

Math and Science @ Work

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/mathandscience/apolloseries/index.html

This has links to a number of teacher resources from how US Presidents helped found NASA to the importance of NASA technology.

50th Anniversary of the Space Age

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/SpaceAge/

Interactive site with pictures and videos.

The Decision to Go to the Moon: President Kennedy’s May 25, 1961 Speech before Congress.

http://history.nasa.gov/moondec.html

Includes transcript and audio

Evaluation of the Space Program

http://history.nasa.gov/Apollomon/apollo2.pdf

Primary document-a memo to President Kennedy dated April 28, 1961

NASA’s Home page

http://www.nasa.gov/

It is easy to do key word searches for a variety of topics.

All URLs accessed on June 11, 2013