Museum websites give students opportunities to pore over the world's priceless collections and exhibits from the comfort of home or the classroom. These museum and archival websites offer an immense collection of primary and secondary resources for research into the depths of history, science, culture, and society, both in the U.S. and around the world. Many also feature lesson plans, interactives, and other resources aimed specifically at classrooms, making it easier to connect curriculum to museum artifacts and documents. Teachers should also make sure to check out the professional development resources and field trip opportunities -- both remote and in-person -- these sites often offer.
Outdated site still useful for science games and investigations
Bottom Line: Many of these interesting and highly educational activities, though a bit disorganized, still challenge and engage kids in important ways.
Powerful stories and media centralize African-American history
Bottom Line: While there aren't ready-to-go curricular materials, this modern, well-curated, and well-contextualized digital collection is sure to inspire compelling lessons.
Virtual tour lets kids explore interactions of humans and our world
Bottom Line: A great gateway to explore evidence and artifacts about the natural world; be ready to build your own lesson plans if you don't plan to visit in real life.
Dig into famed library's collection of research goodies
Bottom Line: The Library of Congress delivers the best of America's past and present, and with teacher support it could be a reliable research resource for students.
Access U.S. history with treasure trove of docs, genealogy, and other resources
Bottom Line: NARA's website wasn't designed for kids, but they can definitely use it to research and learn about history, genealogy, and the U.S. population and government.
Site famous for its Lincoln assassination resources has more to offer
Bottom Line: This site can support meaningful, primary source-driven examination of some of the most important events in U.S. history, but educators will need to dig a little.
Well-curated art and history site inspires curious learning
Bottom Line: A beautifully presented one-stop shop for compellingly curated and contextualized art, history, and culture resources, but it's lacking educator supports.
Extensive resource collection supports teaching about the Holocaust
Bottom Line: As a valuable resource for anyone teaching or learning about the Holocaust, time to explore and plan is necessary in order to make the materials effective.
Bottom Line: This site is great for the planning phase and has excellent resources for bringing in Native perspectives and histories, but it will need some tweaking to fit well into classrooms.
