InformationIsBeautiful.net | Visualizing data as an artform

This is without a doubt the best source I have ever found for examining complicated data in easy to understand fashion. If you have been to a bookstore in the past year and seen the book The Visual Miscellaneum, this is the guy who wrote that book!

This can be an invaluable resource for teaching such complicated topics as:

political ideology...

climate change...

global economies... 

and so much more.

I've already been able to pull entire lessons out of these graphics, and just having one of these images as my desktop got my students talking when I was transferring from a powerpoint to a website.

I can't think of a more ringing endorsement than the fact that high school students thought it was fun and exciting to talk about global market dynamics and censorship based off a picture they saw in passing.

Information is Beautiful.net

C-SPAN Classroom | Free Primary Source Materials For Social Studies Teachers

Not surprisingly, C-Span has a really helpful website chock full of videos of pretty much everything we might need as current or future social studies teachers.

Political Science, Economics, History, Government, Media... it's all here!

It's a classic, and a pretty basic resource, but if you don't have it bookmarked and search for videos here regularly, you are missing out.

And of course the most valuable aspect of this site? School district firewalls won't block this website, unlike youtube....

C-SPAN Classroom