The Georgia Historical Society (GHS) is dedicated to offering trustworthy resources that support K-12 teachers’ digital classrooms. Over the coming weeks GHS will be working diligently to provide educators and parents valuable tools and information to meet the needs of students during the Covid-19 school closures. The “Digital Resources for Georgia’s Students” blog series will explore GHS’s extensive catalog of online resources for learning Georgia and American history and offer strategies for using them at home or in a digital classroom.
Primary sources are at the foundation of social studies education.
Students develop essential skills through exploring and interpreting primary sources. Learning to read, assess, and interpret primary sources helps students learn to analyze evidence in order to develop evidence-based arguments while improving their content knowledge.
GHS provides a wide range of standards-based educational resources for teachers and students based on primary source materials.
One of the most important features of many GHS educational resources are GHS Teacher Guides. As a former teacher, I know that the use of a good primary source can be hindered by lack of information available on the historical setting in which it was created. GHS Teacher Guides provide educators with relevant context, background knowledge, and suggested strategies for teaching with primary sources.
Whether you are an educator, or a parent-turned-educator explore the various resources GHS offers that come equipped with GHS Teacher Guides:
Primary Source Sets: Primary source sets created by GHS are designed to help promote historical inquiry in the classroom by providing access to primary sources aligned to the Georgia Standards of Excellence for 8th grade Georgia Studies.
C3 Inquiries: A series of C3 inquiries created by GHS give students the opportunity to examine questions related to the nation’s founding documents.
“Winning the Vote: Women’s Suffrage in Georgia” inquiry activities: The “Winning the Vote: Women’s Suffrage in Georgia” inquiry activities feature engaging activities for primary source exploration highlighting sources from the New South era and the women’s suffrage movement. All materials are available for download from the Georgia History Festival website.
GHS Schoolhouse: The GHS Schoolhouse video blog includes a variety of videos for educators, including interviews with historians and professors and advice on teaching with primary sources.
Featured Historical Figures: The GHS Featured Historical Figures pages explores the stories of individuals from Georgia’s past. Through this resource, students can read about people who have had a significant impact on the state’s history, learn about their life and legacy, investigate primary sources from the GHS collection, and discover additional resources for deeper study.