Authenticity
Students enjoy working with real facts, numbers, and documents. Rather than "watered down" resources found in workbooks, look for the "real thing" online.
Primary Source Materials
A primary source is a piece of information created from direct experience and often used for understanding history. These sources include actual records and artifacts that have survived from the past such as diaries, letters, photographs, articles of clothing, or coins. Original documents, oral histories, and historical videos are all wonderful primary source materials that will bring social studies or science alive. They're also useful in helping make the time period in historical novels easier to understand.
Today, many people are using digital reproductions of original materials including scanned copies, photographs, or audio and video recordings of live events. These electronic versions allow the original document to be preserved, while allowing young people the opportunity to use the materials. Explore the following sources for digital collections of primary source materials.
- American Memories Learning Page
- National Archives Classroom
- Primary Resources from Steven's Institute
- 42explore: Poetry
- 42explore: Maps
Explore Primary
Resources and Real-World Data from
Teacher Tap.
Go to Definitions: Primary Sources and Escrapbooking to learn more about using primary source materials in your classroom.
Photographic Sources
What did your town look like 50 years ago? What did people wear 100 years ago? Photographs are wonderful tools to help young people visualize historical people, places, things, and events. How has urbanization impacted the geography of an area? What creatures live in a coral reef? A photograph can provide a wonderful springboard to discussing these ideas. Particularly for visual learners, photographs can provide a concrete, shared experience for young people. Many open sources provide photographs that students can use freely in their projects. Pics4Learning is an example.
Read Digital Photo Safaris and Authentic Learning Across the Curriculum. Explore ways to get young people involved with taking their own photographs.
Explore Visual
Resources from Teacher Tap
Seek visuals that could be used to stimulate discussions.
Real-world Data Sources
From the stock market to sports statistics, the web is filled with opportunities to manipulate real-world data. Unlike the neat data sets presented in textbooks, real-world data found on the Internet is often messy and difficult to interpret. Young people need experiences with authentic information sources. For instance, students might compare the air quality in different areas with data from AIRNow or earthquake data from the USGS Earthquake center.
For examples of how real-world data can be used in math, check out Scholastic's Math Hunt. Math in Daily Life, Disaster Math, and FlyByMath contain other examples.
Go to Data, Statistics, and Escrapbooking for lots of examples of using data sets in teaching and learning.
Check out other data sites such as Real-Time Data from Steven's Institute and 42explore: Statistics.
- Earthquakes at USGS
and Did You Feel It?
- USGS Kids and USGS Education at USGS
- Current Volcanic Activity
- Birdhouse Network Cams
- WhaleNet Tagging
- Turtle Tracking
- Florida Leatherbacks Blog
Differentiate! Locate a document, photograph, or set of data
that would bring a classroom topic to life. Design a short activity around
this information. Get young people involved in collecting their own data.
Review
Review the "big ideas" on this page:
A primary source is a piece of information created from direct experience such as diaries, letters, photographs, articles of clothing, or coins. Digital reproductions of original materials including scanned copies, photographs, or audio and video recordings of live events.
Particularly for visual learners, photographs can provide a concrete, shared experience for young people.
Unlike the neat data sets presented in textbooks, real-world data found on the Internet is often messy and difficult to interpret. Young people need experiences with authentic information sources.
