News and Map Resources for the Social Studies Classroom

Maps and news sources are an essential part of many social studies courses. What if it is a history or global culture course? Are there better options? Sometimes you don’t want a current or local newspaper or map.  To start, I want to acknowledge the National Archives, a great source for primary source and historical documents. I didn’t include it in the list because it is in a league of its own. Part of my criteria for inclusion on this list was that the sources should be valuable for a social studies classroom, but not necessarily well know. See what you think, and let me know if you have anything you want to add.

Chronicling America: A comprehensive collection of historical newspapers with a cool feature, 100 Years Ago Today. Every day features a collection of newspapers from 100 years previous.

World Newspapers: This website offers a comprehensive collection of newspapers arranged by country or topic. The topic option includes journals and magazines that can be browsed by topic AND country.

Osher Map Library: A great collection of maps arranged thematically. Teacher resources are also included.

Old Maps Online: A collection of scanned images of historical maps. You can do a search for a specific map, browse, or search for the desired region on a master world map.

Newspaper Map The Newspaper map is literally a world map of newspapers. You can click on any area of the world to find local newspapers from the region with information regarding language options.

I hope you find this useful. If you do, please share with others who may also benefit. Don’t forget to also follow me on Twitter @JoshuaElliott3 for more tips and ideas.