General Social Science Resources

Visit the HSS (History-Social Science) Professional Learning and Curriculum Resources web page to access resources for California, United States, and world history; civic learning and engagement; economics and financial literacy; geography and environmental education; and global education courses.

General Resources

California Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy (PDF)
Spanish translations are available on the Common Core en Español website .

California HSS Content Standards (1998) (PDF)
The main guiding document for California's HSS curriculum, the content standards lay out the expectations for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level.

California HSS Curriculum Framework (2016)
This document provides guidance for teachers and administrators on how to implement a standards-based curriculum in the classroom.

Organizations

Cal Humanities
Promotes the humanities through facilitating programs and initiatives (such as the California Democracy Project ), providing funding opportunities, and sharing additional resources to support the humanities.

California Council for the Social Studies (CCSS)
Professional organization that serves public and private school educators, and is affiliated with the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) . CCSS supports social studies education through service, advocacy, and leadership development.

California History-Social Science Project (CHSSP)
The CHSSP is one of nine California Subject Matter Projects (CSMP) that provide high-quality professional learning for educators at the pre-kindergarten through post-secondary levels. Four regional CHSSP sites provide resources and professional learning targeted to regional needs. CHSSP local programs are designed to deepen teachers' knowledge of history, geography, civics, and economics, and enhance teachers' instructional strategies in the teaching of those disciplines.

California Global Education Project (CGEP)
Statewide network that connects universities, schools, and districts in collaborative efforts to increase teacher competence in history, world languages, and international studies. CGEP provides ongoing professional development and support for educators from kindergarten through grade twelve (K–12), and is part of the CSMP .

EDSITEment
EDSITEment is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Trust for the Humanities . EDSITEment offers free resources for teachers, students, and parents searching for high-quality education materials in the subject areas of literature and language arts, foreign languages, art and culture, and HSS.

Facing History and Ourselves
Provides a wide variety of resources to support civic responsibility, tolerance, and social action for young people.

Fred T. Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education
Curriculum toolkits and materials, lesson plans, museum exhibits, and additional resources that have been developed with the goal of advancing racial equity, social justice, and human rights for all.

Fund for Teachers
Supports educator efforts to develop skills, knowledge, and confidence by funding teacher-designed professional learning opportunities.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
The Huntington’s education programs serve a broad audience and provide enrichment for school teachers, children, and adults. Programs range from lively activities for preschoolers to intensive five-week institutes for K–12 classroom teachers.

Learning for Justice
Formerly known as “Teaching Tolerance,” Learning for Justice produces and distributes documentary films, books, lesson plans and other materials that reduce prejudice and promote social justice in K–12 schools.

Museum of Tolerance
Laboratory of human rights and educational center dedicated to challenging visitors to understand the Holocaust in both historic and contemporary contexts and confront all forms of prejudice and discrimination. They offer an extensive variety of curriculum and instructional resources, as well as professional learning opportunities.

National Archives
Lesson plans, training for teachers, primary sources, distance learning support, field trips and more for K–12 teachers.

National Humanities Center
Provides online professional development workshops and seminars for high school United States history and American literature teachers. They also host America in Class , which provides primary and secondary resources, webinars, and lessons for history and literature teachers. America in Class is designed to promote the analytical skills called for in the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in HSS (PDF).

NEH
Each year the NEH offers school teachers tuition-free opportunities to study important humanities topics through their summer seminars, institutes, and landmarks of American history and culture workshops.

News Literacy Project (NLP)
The NLP seeks to advance news literacy by supporting the public, those in education and the media to become more news-literate. Educator resources include a resource library, NewsLitNation national community of practice, News Literacy Ambassador Program, district partnerships, and a suite of free classroom and professional development resources.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21)
P21 provides tools and resources that fuse core subjects with critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation to prepare students to face rigorous higher education coursework, career challenges, and a globally competitive workforce.

PBS Learning Media
Provides direct access to thousands of classroom-ready, curriculum-targeted digital resources. Resources are aligned to Common Core and national standards, and include video, audio, documents, and in-depth lesson plans. Educators can browse by standards, grade level, subject area, and special collections.

Smithsonian Learning Lab
Interactive platform for discovering millions of authentic digital resources, creating content with online tools, and sharing in the Smithsonian's expansive community of knowledge and learning.