Supplement Your Stretched Budget
GetEdFunding is CDW-G’s new website to help educators and institutions find the funds they need to supplement already stretched budgets. GetEdFunding is a free and fresh resource, which hosts a collection of more than 1,000 grants and other funding opportunities culled from federal, state, regional and community sources and available to public and private, preK–12 educators, schools and districts, higher education institutions and nonprofit organizations that work with them. The site offers customized searches by six criteria, including 41 areas of focus, eight content areas and any of the 21st century themes and skills that support your curriculum. Once you are registered on the site, you can save the grants of greatest interest and then return to read about them at any time.
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Promote Understanding of Environmental Issues
The Captain Planet Foundation makes grants to US-based schools and organizations with an annual operating budget of less than $3 million. Grants are made for activities that conform to Captain Planet Foundation's mission to promote and support high-quality educational programs that enable children and youth aged 6-18 (elementary through high school) to understand and appreciate their world through learning experiences that engage them in active, hands-on projects to improve the environment in their schools and communities. The amount of the grant ranges from $250 to $2,500.
Deadlines: February 28, typically for fall and winter projects; September 30, typically for spring and summer projects
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Recognize Excellence in Student Nonfiction
The Pearson Foundation and Atavist, publisher of electronic journalism, are sponsors of The Digital Storymakers Award, which recognizes excellence in original nonfiction narrative that blends text, photos, video, interactive maps and other rich media features. The award is open to students enrolled in high school, college or graduate school who create a nonfiction, multimedia narrative, including those students studying journalism, graphic arts, writing, photography and documentary video/film. Prizes will be awarded in three categories: long form (text-based, over 5,000 words); short form (text-based, 1,500–5,000 words); visual (image-based). Awards will be distributed to individuals or teams with the best entries within the three educational categories: high school, undergraduate and graduate. Grand-prize winners in each educational group for each category will receive a $5,000 cash prize and an invitation to a free two-day boot camp in New York City during the summer of 2013, where they will work with Atavist staff and guest authors/creators to polish their digital storymaking skills. Three finalists in each educational group for each category (a total of 27 finalists) will be published in the special Digital Storymakers Award app.
Deadline: Submissions accepted from January 1 through April 15, 2013
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Help Students Deal with Crises
SafeSchools has offered complimentary access to its Managing the Aftermath of Tragedy courses to every school district in the United States and Canada. The Managing the Aftermath of Tragedy series includes customized courses for administrators and staff members that provide key strategies on how to respond to tragedies; information on typical childhood reactions to crises; and ways to provide care and comfort to students and staff members. To access the free Managing the Aftermath of Tragedy courses, visit the SafeSchools Cares website. Click the Register button in the blue login box to begin and then type CARES as the Registration Key. For further information, call SafeSchools at 800.434.0154.
Click Here to Register for Free Resources

Create a Planning Calendar Using the CCSS
Countdown is a new service designed to help elementary and middle school teachers plan a schedule of math assessments aligned to Common Core standards. Countdown helps you plan by providing a place to prepare a schedule of assessments. Each entry on your schedule can be aligned to the Common Core standards through the Countdown planner. To align your entries, select an assessment, choose your grade level and then drag standards from the Countdown menu to your assessment. The Countdown planner includes full descriptions of each standard. Countdown is still in beta, so not all of the features have been launched. One of the forthcoming features is the option to share assessment schedules with other teachers. Another is the option to align assessment schedules to a school’s or district’s master calendar.
Click Here to Access Free Schedule Planner

Investigate Pivotal Moments in History
Civil Rights Historical Investigations, part of Facing History’s resource collection, require students to “do” history—to gather evidence from primary documents, use that evidence to make claims about the past and then apply what they learn to their own lives today. In the first unit, students learn about the murder and trial of Emmett Till. This material asks students to consider the historical context that contributed to the growth of the civil rights movement in the 1950s. In the second unit, students explore voter discrimination in the South and the philosophy of nonviolence that guided civil rights activists’ responses to this injustice, culminating in the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. The third unit exposes students to the civil rights movement in the North by focusing on the struggle over school desegregation in Boston in the 1960s and early 1970s. The three units and additional resources may be freely downloaded as PDF files from the Facing History website.
Click Here to Download Free Units

Connect the Cold War to Current Events
What was the cold war? How did it shape history? How are we still seeing its echoes today? The New York Times Learning Network provides 13 years of lesson plans and other materials to help students answer these questions by going beyond the textbook and working with original Times reports, photojournalism and essays, any of which can be used to address one or more of the following essential questions: Who was responsible for starting the cold war? Why didn’t the cold war ever turn “hot”? How did the cold war challenge American values, at home and abroad? How did the cold war contribute to the current unrest in the Middle East and Afghanistan? Is the cold war still going on? How?
Click Here to Access Free Lesson Plans

Engage Students in Digital Learning
Digital Learning Day is a national campaign that celebrates teachers and shines a spotlight on successful instructional practices and effective use of technology in classrooms across the country. The inaugural Digital Learning Day boasted tens of thousands of teachers representing nearly 2 million students. The second annual Digital Learning Day is gaining momentum with ongoing activities, ideas and collaboration opportunities leading up to February 6, 2013. Join the wave of education champions who seek to engage students, celebrate and empower teachers and create a learning environment, personalized for every child. Participation is free.
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Evaluate the Uses of Educational Technology
The US Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology has released a draft report entitled “Expanding Evidence Approaches for Learning in a Digital World,” designed to offer the education community some guidance for navigating the crowded tech landscape. The report is meant to provide approaches for school officials and others seeking to gather evidence on digital learning systems, guidance that can be adapted to the needs of individual schools and districts. The document draws from the perspectives of education researchers, school technology developers and educators themselves. The document includes a framework to help educators and others evaluate the uses of education technology. One of the goals of the framework is to give school officials greater confidence that investments in cost-effective and cost-saving technology-based interventions are wise, capable of producing the outcomes sought. That framework includes an evidence reference guide, which focuses primarily on six approaches for using evidence to evaluate school technology, as well as other approaches commonly used in education. It presents readers with an evidence decision-making model that can be used to gather evidence on digital learning resources, once they have been selected, so that they can be implemented effectively. And it offers scenarios describing how various evidence standards might be used in hypothetical situations.
Click Here to Download Full Report

Teach the Basics of Online Life
Common Sense Media has released Digital Passport, a free, web-based tool to help educators prepare students from grades 3 to 5 to use online and mobile technologies. Based on lessons from Common Sense Media’s K–12 Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum, the tool addresses issues children face online—safety and security, cyberbullying, privacy, responsible cellphone use and respect of creative work—and leverages a blended learning model of classroom instruction with online videos and games. Additionally, Digital Passport’s modules align to the ISTE NETS standards and Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts.
Click Here to Register for Free Modules

Immerse Students in American History
Think Fast! About the Past is a fast-paced game developed by Thirteen/WNET, the producers of the Mission US adventure game. Players can choose from two different Think Fast “missions,” each connected to one of the Mission US games. In Mission 1, the sharp-tongued Patriot Royce Dillingham challenges students to navigate 1770 Boston by answering questions about colonial history. In Mission 2, Lucy King challenges students to deliver a message to her brother, who is enslaved on a plantation in 1850 Kentucky, by answering questions about slavery and resistance during the pre–Civil War era. Each correct answer advances students to another location on the map. Students have five minutes to move through all 10 locations to complete the challenge, but answering correctly more quickly will earn a higher ranking. The clock pauses whenever explanations appear in order to allow students time to read them. The app is available for the iPad and the Android tablet.
Click Here to Access Free iPad App
Click Here to Access Free Android App

Celebrate Earth’s Aesthetic Beauty
In 1960 the United States put its first Earth-observing environmental satellite into orbit around the planet. Over the decades, these satellites have provided invaluable information, and the vantage point of space has provided new perspectives on Earth. The Earth As Art iPad app celebrates Earth’s aesthetic beauty in the patterns, shapes, colors and textures of the land, oceans, ice and atmosphere. The app features time-lapse satellite images of locations on Earth undergoing significant change over decades, linking to NASA’s Earth Observatory website. The app has a thumbnail gallery of the images as well as an interactive directory with images organized by geographic region. Each image has a brief caption and the ability to enlarge each scene.
Click Here to Access Free iPad App

Zoom Inside Cells
iCell is a free app developed by the Hudson Alpha Institute for Biotechnology. The app provides students with 3-D models of plant, animal and bacteria cells. Each cell model can be viewed in detail by zooming in and rotating the model on a mobile device. Students can learn about the parts of the cells by tapping on them to reveal their labels and a brief description of that part’s function. The app provides options for basic, intermediate and advanced descriptions. iCell is available for the iPad and iPhone as well as for Android devices.
Click Here to Access Free iPad/iPhone App
Click Here to Access Free Android App

Visualize Life Cycles of Plants and Animals
The USA National Phenology Network (USA NPN) has built a map of plant and animal life in the United States. Students can search the map by animal, plant or location. The map includes a time slider that students can use to visualize the life cycles of the plants and animals on the map. Students can also add climate overlays to the map.
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Investigate Seasonal Changes in the Environment
The GLOBE Seasons and Biomes Project is one of four Earth System Science Projects (ESSPs) funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop hands-on, primary and secondary school-based science activities for The GLOBE Program. The project guides students through an investigation of seasonal changes and biomes. Through the GLOBE Seasons and Biomes Project, students and teachers have the opportunity to use GLOBE resources to conduct scientific inquiries in their local environments and biomes. This project contributes critically needed science measurements to validate satellite data used in research on regional climate change, prevention and management of diseases and understanding of the water and carbon cycles. By monitoring the seasons in their biome, students will learn how interactions within the Earth system affect their local environment and how it in turn affects regional and global environments.
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Follow the Long, Bumpy Road to Freedom
The Lincoln Learning Hub is where students can learn about Abraham Lincoln, his cabinet members and the movement to end slavery. The site includes a timeline that traces the period from Lincoln’s first election as president to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. In the What Would Lincoln Do? section, students consider how Lincoln may have responded to political, social, economic and military crises of times that were not his own: Would Lincoln issue the order to drop the bomb on Hiroshima? Would Lincoln give all former male slaves the right to vote? Would he urge Congress to include women in the Fifteenth Amendment? Would he assume broad military powers and suspend the writ of habeas corpus in the aftermath of 9/11? In considering these and other questions, students read debate points—along with Lincoln’s words—and decide for themselves. Then they can compare their thoughts with what prominent historians believe Lincoln would do. A guide for educators appears in the Resources section of the site.
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Build a Socially Conscious Business
Becoming a social entrepreneur takes both a vision for revolutionary change and the gumption to do something about it. Students can try the games and activities on The New Heroes website to learn about the characteristics of a successful social entrepreneur and find out if they might have what it takes to transform a vision into reality. They can play a game that requires them to tackle the challenges of building a business with a social conscience. They can determine how they can make a difference by taking a quiz to find out which issues and problems most inspire them. And if they have an inspirational story or great idea for changing the world, they can share it with others on the site.
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Plus: The For Teachers section includes free classroom materials written for students in grades 6–12 to deepen their understanding of the world and related social issues. These activities are intended to raise awareness of individuals who make a difference and show how problem solvers begin and carry out their work.
Click Here to Access Free Classroom Resources

Take 3-D Virtual Tours Around the World
AirPano offers dozens of spectacular 360-degree panoramas of famous landmarks and cities around the world. The AirPano panoramas can be set to auto-play with a music accompaniment, or students can navigate the panoramas manually. To find a panorama on AirPano, students can browse the listings, search by keyword or view a Google Map of all of the places AirPano has captured. The panoramas can be viewed in high or low resolution, according to the speed of students’ Internet connection. The panoramas can also be viewed on an iPad.
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Click Here to Access Google Map

Explore the Stories Behind the Legend
The Kennedy Center invites students to explore the life and legacy of William Shakespeare. Using the synchronized map and timeline, students will learn how Shakespeare’s legacy continues to impact our world today. They will witness how artists and innovators take inspiration from the heights of his brilliance, and through constant reimaginings, they will see how Shakespeare’s gift has become a light for millions of people across the world.
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