Educational Resources
Selected and annotated by the Colonel Richard M. and Betty Debnam Hunt Teaching Resources Center Staff.
AIMS Center for Math and Science Education
Whether you need help building conceptual understanding, providing effective intervention, or incorporating collaborative learning into the classroom, AIMS hands-on activities supplement your math and science programs to help every student succeed. Free resources and activities can be found under the Free Resources tab.
ALA – Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC)
This division of the American Library Association administers literary and related awards, including the Batchelder, Belpre, Caldecott, Geisel, Newbery, Odyssey, and Sibert Medals, as well as the May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award. Children’s Notable Lists recommends exemplary books, videos, recordings, and computer software for children.
Annenberg Classroom
Annenberg Classroom offers a wide array of educational resources under a single umbrella. Educators can find curricula, lesson plans, multimedia programs, and other teaching materials all indexed and aligned with the educational standards of their state. Search by keyword, by subject area, or by state standard to find one of the richest sets of teaching aids available in a single location.
Guidelines, resources, and tips for avoiding plagiarism.
Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices
The Association for Library Service to Children partnered with Netflix in support of Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices, a collection of 12 episodes featuring prominent Black celebrities and artists reading children’s books from Black authors. In addition to the series selections, there are recommendations for additional books, questions, and activities for children of different ages. The videos are also available for free without subscription on the Netflix Jr. YouTube page.
Children are the future of our communities, so those who want to devote their career to shaping young minds and helping kids become productive adults have an extremely important and rewarding role to play. From helping special needs children to teaching elementary school to working in pediatric medicine, there are many different career paths where you can make a positive and lasting difference in children’s lives. See if a career working with children is right for you, explore some of the most popular jobs and industries where kids come first, and get a first-hand account of what it’s like to work with children in our expert interview.
This searchable database currently includes lesson plans aligned to the NC Essential Standards, as well as activities for use in school, after school and extra-curricular settings. To ensure compatibility, files are available in PDF format.
The United States Census Bureau is an important resource for data about the people and economy of the United States. The Census in Schools program promotes data literacy and increases awareness of Census Bureau products and activities by providing educators with teaching tools, resource materials, workshops, and other professional development opportunities.
The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction offers this resource to support the character education movement. Available at the web site is the Character Education Information Handbook and Guide for Support and Implementation of the Student Citizen Act of 2001.
Child Care and Early Education Research Connections
This website promotes high quality research in child care and early education, and the use of that research in policy making. Their vision is that children are well cared for and have rich learning experiences while families are supported and able to work. Through this Web site, they offer research and data resources for researchers, policy makers, practitioners, and others. This is an open access collection from a partnership among the National Center for Children in Poverty at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University; the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan; and the Child Care Bureau, Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database (CLCD)
This resource allows users to search for a multitude of teaching resources.
Children’s Picture Book Database at Miami University
This academic website gives teachers, librarians, parents, and students a place for designing literature-based thematic units for all subjects. This site offers you: abstracts of over 5,000 children’s picture books; search capabilities for over 950 keywords, including topics, concepts, and skills which, describe each book; web links for keywords so you can integrate your up-to-date content knowledge with our picture book resources.
Common Core State Standards
The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers.
Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC)
The Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) is a unique and vital gathering place for books, ideas, and expertise in the field of children’s and young adult literature.
Daily Reflector Image Collection
The more than 7,500 images from The Daily Reflector, Greenville NC’s daily newspaper, document the sweeping changes in Eastern North Carolina between 1949 and 1967.
Children, teens, parents, and teachers will find links to science-related games, online and at-home labs, lesson plans, and educational resources at Brainy Kids Online – a part of the Dana foundation.
Directory of North Carolina Performers
The Performer’s Directory lists Web sites and e-mail addresses for individuals or groups who do children’s programming.
Discovery Education Classroom Resources
Discovery Education provides engaging digital resources to schools and homes with the goal of making educators more effective, increasing student achievement, and connecting classrooms and families to a world of learning.
ECU Copyright
Contains information pertaining to copyrights at ECU.
Education World, the educator’s best friend is a resource that includes: a search engine for educational web sites only, a place where educators can find information without searching the entire Internet; original content, including lesson plans, practical information for educators, information on how to integrate technology in the classroom, and articles written by education experts; site reviews; daily features and columns; teacher and principal profiles; wire side chats with the important names in education; employment listings. Education World’s goal is to make it easy for educators to integrate the Internet into the classroom.
Ensuring Democracy Through Digital Access
East Carolina University, the State Library of North Carolina, and the University Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are creating the most comprehensive to date digital collection of core North Carolina state government documents, offering researchers a historical view of the development of the state’s government and infrastructure.
GCF Global Learning
Offering free, beginning computer courses and other learning opportunities world-wide in English and Spanish. Online learning opportunities include: computer basics, internet basics, Email basics, career development, Windows, Microsoft Office and more. GCF Global Learning® is supported by the revenue that is generated from the donations to GCF Donation Centers & Stores®.
Teaching kids about money when they’re young lays the foundation for responsible money management later in life. Children whose parents emphasize the importance of financial literacy and encourage them to spend and save thoughtfully develop a healthy perspective on money.
LEARN NC
LEARN NC, a program of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education, provides lesson plans, professional development, and innovative web resources to support teachers, build community, and improve K-12 education in North Carolina.
Lesson Plans – UW Oshkosh Libraries
This website, sponsored by the Education Materials Center of the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Libraries, lists a number of lesson plans for a variety of subjects.
Mini Page Archive
The Mini Page is a four-page weekly newspaper feature directed to kids but of interest to readers of all ages. The feature has won many awards for excellence in educational journalism and has appeared in as many as 500 newspapers. This digital archive provides online access to issues published from August 1969 to May 2007, the period during which founder Betty Debnam was editor.
NASA Education
This web site offers information about NASA for educators at all levels, students and children. NASA partners with academic institutions, professional education associations, industry, and other Government agencies to provide teachers, students, and faculty with the experiences that capitalize on the excitement of NASA’s discoveries.
National Institutes of Health – Curriculum Supplements
This division of NIH features free educational resources for science education for elementary, middle, and high school students, addressing a wide range of topics such as bioethics, alternative medicine, diabetes, and sexual health. Includes information about careers in science. Some material available in Spanish.
National Science Digital Library
The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) was created by the National Science Foundation to provide organized access to high quality resources and tools that support innovations in teaching and learning at all levels of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education.
NC Standard Course of Study
The North Carolina Standard Course of Study provides every content area a set of competencies for each grade and high school course.
NCpedia
NCpedia is free online website designed to provide an overview of the people, government, history, and resources of North Carolina. NCpedia was created through a partnership between the State Library of North Carolina, North Carolina State Archives and NC LIVE.
North Carolina Association of School Administrators
The North Carolina Association of School Administrators was established in 1976 with the mission of insuring quality learning experiences for all students through visionary and effective leadership. NCASA is an umbrella organization under which North Carolina school administrator groups are unified. NCASA provides to all these groups broad based membership services, professional development, financial services, communication, legal counsel, legal fees liability insurance and lobbying services.
North Carolina Department of Public Instruction
This web site includes: the NC standard course of study, employment & licensure support, reports & statistics, DPI publication sales, education initiatives such as No Child Left Behind, events & conferences, the NC education directory and program areas such as the Governor’s School of North Carolina.
North Carolina Principals & Assistant Principals Association
NCPAPA is the only independent state association representing principals and assistant principals exclusively. NCPAPA is also the North Carolina affiliate of both the National Association of Elementary School Principals and the National Association of Secondary School Principals, with a representative to each of these organizations.
North Carolina School Boards Association
NCSBA is the professional organization that represents all 115 local boards of education in North Carolina. It is a member-driven association that supports the school governance team—school board members, superintendents, senior administrative staff and board assistants—in its complex leadership role. We help develop, communicate and advocate for the perspective of North Carolina school districts.
Project Look Sharp
Project Look Sharp is a Media Literacy initiative of Ithaca College to provide materials, training and support for the effective integration of media literacy with critical thinking into classroom curricula at all education levels.
Renaissance AR Bookfinder®
With the aid of Renaissance AR Bookfinder®, educators, parents, and students can search for Accelerated Reader (AR) books online by title, author, readability level, point value, and topic.
SMART Exchange
This site allows you to find lesson plans for your SMART Board. Teachers are also given the opportunity to connect with other teachers.
Smithsonian’s History Explorer
Your gateway to innovative, standards-based online resources for teaching and learning American history, designed and developed by the National Museum of American History as part of Verizon’s thinkfinity.org consortium. Explore the rich resources of the Museum and bring history to life with artifacts, primary sources, and online tools for the classroom, afterschool programs, and home.
Teach4 NC
Teach4NC is a resource dedicated to the recruitment of teaching professionals for public schools in North Carolina. This resource provides comprehensive information on traditional and non-traditional approaches to becoming a teacher in North Carolina. It also provides links to teaching positions available in North Carolina, as well as other job opportunities in education in the state.
Teachers-ED.gov
Sponsored by the United States Department of Education, this special section, just for educators, features the following resources: Toolkit for Teachers, Teaching Resources from Federal Agencies, One-Stop for Lesson Plans, Publications for Teachers, and information about the Teacher-to-Teacher Initiative.
TeacherTube
TeacherTube is an online community for sharing instructional videos. The site provides an educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners. In addition, teachers can post videos designed to teach concepts and skills to students.
Teaching Tolerance
Founded in 1991 by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Teaching Tolerance provides educators with free educational materials that promote respect for differences and appreciation of diversity in the classroom and beyond. Their magazine and curriculum kits have earned Oscar nominations, an Academy Award, and more than a dozen honors from the Association of Educational Publishers (EdPress) including the Golden Lamp Award.
The Eastern North Carolina Digital Library
This site contains 399 fiction and non-fiction volumes of rare materials, 150+ museum artifacts, maps and more than 100 educational lesson plans/activities pertaining to the history of the 41 counties in Eastern North Carolina. This project brings together many primary sources of local history materials, historical fiction related to these localities, and museum artifacts that highlight Eastern North Carolina’s rich past.
The Lexile Framework® for Reading
This site enables individuals to measure a child’s reading ability or the difficulty of a book or article.
The Public School Forum of North Carolina
This non-profit policy think tank which is a partnership of business leaders, education leaders, and government leaders in North Carolina. Since opening its doors in 1986, the Forum has evolved into an organization that has made a significant contribution to schools across North Carolina.
This Day in North Carolina History
This Day in North Carolina History is a daily blog featuring historically significant events that have occurred throughout our state.
U.S. Department of Agriculture
The Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, an organization of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was established in 1994 to improve the nutrition and well-being of Americans. Toward this goal, the Center focuses its efforts on two primary objectives: Advance and promote dietary guidance for all Americans, and Conduct applied research and analyses in nutrition and consumer economics.The Center’s core projects to support its objectives are the following: Dietary Guidelines for Americans USDA Food Guidance System (MyPlate, MyPyramid, Food Guide Pyramid) Healthy Eating Index U.S. Food Plans Nutrient Content of the U.S. Food Supply Expenditures on Children by Families
U.S. Department of Education
ED was created in 1980 by combining offices from several federal agencies. ED’s mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.
United States Mint: H.I.P. Pocket Change™
H.I.P. Pocket Change is a fun educational tool for students and teachers that generates interest in coins, the United States Mint, and U.S. history.
The goal of the Usable Knowledge web site is to provide educational leaders with crisp and convenient access to research that can be used to improve education – learning, teaching, institutional organization, and policy. Usable Knowledge is a creation of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Investing in youth is one of the best ways to create a brighter future. Everyone with financial means should donate to a school, a classroom, or a non-profit organization whenever and wherever they can. Yet the best way to make a difference in the lives of children may be with time and energy. Volunteering as a coach, a tutor, a mentor, or even as a friend can give a child the comfort and confidence they need when going through a difficult time. And if you have children of your own, getting them involved early and often can show them firsthand just how much volunteering matters. If you’re ready to volunteer with children, or if you’re thinking about a career working with kids, the following guide has everything you need to get started.