Advanced Placement (AP) Social Studies Resources
Numerous studies have shown the advantages and benefits of effective instruction in social studies in grades K-12. Once they reach high school, to deepen and further their social studies content knowledge and skills, students from all walks of life should be offered the opportunity to participate in Advanced Placement and/or International Baccalaureate courses. Taking Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) courses can provide the necessary critical thinking skills to help students succeed after high school, prepare for college level classes, strengthen and boost student GPA, and earn college credit hours.
“AP gives students the chance to tackle college-level work while they’re still in high school—whether they’re learning online or in the classroom. And through taking AP Exams, students can earn college credit and placement.”
-CollegeBoard
Disclaimer: The instructional materials and resources listed below are not endorsed by the Nebraska Department of Education. The scope of responsibility to use and implement any instructional materials and resources fall within the jurisdiction of each Nebraska school district. To that end, please ensure that all teaching tools, materials, and resources have met your districts qualifications for use in the classroom or you have the approval or your school and/or district before sharing any materials with your students.
AP European History
From website:
Thousands of links to great web sites and primary source documents. Select a topic and go to the page and you will find a large number of links that can be used for research and study. Select the blue check mark and you will be directed to an in-depth, detail-linked classroom assignment page for that topic!
From website:
In 50 episodes, John Green will teach you about European History to give you an overview of Europe’s history and connection with the world from 1450 to the present. This course is based on the AP European History Course Description and college-level Introduction to Western Civilization curriculum.
By the end of the course, you will be able to:
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- Examine European events from 1450 to the present from multiple perspectives
- Explain the relative historical significance of specific historical developments in relation to a larger pattern of continuity and/or change.
- Apply historical thinking skills to topics like the Renaissance, Reformation, Exploration, Scientific and Philosophical Developments, Political Revolutions, War and Ideology.
- Analyze how changes in beliefs about the nature of the state and people’s relationship to it led to revolution and reform in Eastern and Western Europe.
- Develop arguments about the following themes in European History:
- Interaction of Europe and the World
- Commercial Developments
- Cultural and Intellectual Developments
- States and Other Institutions of Power
- Social Organization and Development
- National and European Identity
- Technological and Scientific Innovation
From website:
We know that studying for your AP exams can be stressful, but Fiveable has your back! We have created a study plan that will help you crush your European History exam. We will continue to update this guide with more information about the exam, as well as helpful resources to help you score that 5.
From website:
I have loved history and politics since I was in middle school and am very blessed to be able to teach history and government for a living. I began teaching high school history courses in 2008. In the same year, I launched TomRichey.net to help my students (and me) keep up with course materials and assignments, but it’s grown into a way for me to also share my work with anyone who can make use of it. I’m honored that people have found my instructional materials helpful in public, private, and home school settings. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there’s anything I can add to this site that can help you.
In 2012, I started filming video lectures and posting them on my YouTube channel so that students who were absent wouldn’t miss classroom instruction. What started several years ago as an extension of my classroom has become a classroom for the world, with over 175,00 subscribers and 20 million views – with about a third of the views each month coming from outside of the United States. I’m looking forward to continuing to open up my classroom to the world through my website and YouTube channel.
AP Human Geography
AP Human Geography Google Shared Drive
From website:
Welcome to the new and improved APHG Shared Google Drive! There is a FAQ document that serves as instructions and provides other important information for accessing and using the shared drive. Please read the document thoroughly.
AP Human Geography Teachers Facebook Group
From website:
This is a group for teachers of AP Human Geography. Its purpose is to network APHG teachers and to create a community to link experienced and new teachers.
This group is a professional network group for AP Human Geography teachers.
AP Human Geography YouTube Channel
From website:
Whether your school year starts with in-person, hybrid/blended, or online learning, AP teachers can use the free, digital instructional resources in AP Classroom to provide students with daily instruction, practice, and feedback on every course topic and skill that’s tested on an AP Exam.
AP teachers and students can begin using AP Classroom resources immediately and from anywhere — from any phone, tablet, or computer with an internet connection — using their College Board usernames and passwords. Sign in at myap.collegeboard.org.
C-SPAN Classroom: AP Human Geography and the Five Themes
From website:
By selecting the above link you will find C-SPAN Classroom resources relating to the sections and periods listed and found in the AP Human Geography Course and Exam Description. While on the website, click on each title to expand the section and view the featured resources.
Mr. Tredinnick’s AP Human Geography Class
*Nebraska Educator*
From website:
This year long class will introduce students to the systematic study of patterns and processes that have shaped human understanding, use, and alterations of the Earth’s surface. By looking at the relationships between cultural groups and their physical geography it is possible to find relationships that allow geographers to understand better how humans are shaped by their physical world, and change it in turn. We will be looking at different cultural phenomenon such as language, religion, government, and economic systems in order to make connections between different cultural set and how they interact with one another. By examining maps and other geographical tools students will examine correlations between the physical and human world and the interactions that have shaped our planet and human life. This course is designed to increase the students’ understanding of the world and develop their critical thinking skills. Upon completion of this course students will be given the opportunity to take the Advanced Placement test for the possibility of college credit.
National Council for Geographic Education
From website:
APHG mirrors a typical undergraduate level Introduction to Human Geography course and covers the following seven units:
- The geographic perspective
- Population
- Cultural patterns and processes
- Political organization of space
- Agricultural and rural land use
- Industrialization and economic development
- Cities and urban land use
This course should help students understand how cultural, economic and political systems relate to the distribution of human activities, the nature of places, and people’s interaction with their environment.
In addition to mastering the course content, each student should be prepared to pass the national college-level Advanced Placement Examination in May. Students may be eligible for college credit for successfully completing the exam. This course should prepare students to enroll in intermediate and advanced level human geography courses at the college level.
From website:
The Advanced Placement Human Geography (APHG) course introduces students to the systematic study of patterns and processes that have shaped human understanding, use, and alteration of Earth’s surface. Students employ spatial concepts and landscape analysis to examine human social organization and its environmental consequences. They also learn about the methods and tools geographers use in their science and practice. It is an excellent course for preparing students to become geo-literate youth and adults.
On this page, selected resources from the National Geographic Education website are organized under topic headings used to teach the course. Resources include instructional content for teachers; career profiles, news articles, and encyclopedic entries for student reading, as well as teacher background reading; and multimedia, which includes maps, photos, and videos contextualized with rich information for use in the course. As an instructor, you may find the need to scale the content up or down for higher or lower level learning, depending on your students.
AP Psychology
AP Psychology Teachers Facebook Group
From website:
Wonderful learning space for AP Psychology educators.
From website:
“Hundreds of students have gained college credit through Advanced Placement in my classes. The impact on those students has been remarkable. This year my students will be pushed to gain new thinking skills and I am thrilled to help them grow and become more prepared for college and a life as a citizen of this planet.”
From website:
At Crash Course, we believe that high quality educational videos should be available to everyone for free. The Crash Course team has produced more than 15 courses to date, and these videos accompany high school and college level classes ranging from the humanities to the sciences. Crash Course transforms the traditional textbook model by presenting information in a fast-paced format, enhancing the learning experience.
With hundreds of millions of views on our YouTube channel, Crash Course has a worldwide audience in and out of classrooms. While the show is an immensely helpful tool for students and teachers, it also has a large viewership of casual learners who seek out online educational content independently. It has changed attitudes towards education by creating a community of learners who are looking for more than just help passing a test. We hope Crash Course is useful to you, and thanks for watching!
Mr. Lipsky’s Website – AP Psychology
From website:
Welcome to the AP Psychology class page. Click on the links on the left side of this page to find updates, videos, class handouts and many more items for each unit. There are also various resources to prepare you for the upcoming AP Exam in May.
Nebraska Teachers of Psychology in Secondary Schools (NebToPSS)
*For Nebraska Educators
From website:
NebTOPSS (Nebraska Teachers of Psychology) offers professional development, networking, and resources for high school psychology teachers in the Eastern Nebraska region. We offer an annual conference each year, and will work to provide valuable resources for high school psychology teachers.
From website:
Here you will find a series of linked web pages. I will periodically add to them over the course of the year or eliminate them as I find better resources. I fully encourage you to explore them as they will serve to reinforce the things that we discuss and learn in class. Remember that your ultimate goal is to build fluency in the language of psychology such that students can hold an intelligent, coherent conversation with others who are well-versed in the basic theories of psychology.
From website:
Dr. Swope has been lucky to be able to introduce psychology to students of all ages and many backgrounds. While teaching facts, names and theories is necessary to impart a firm academic groundwork, teaching students to think critically is the highlight of any lesson. Asking students whether thoughts cause brain activity or whether brain activity causes thoughts is almost as much fun as asking students if there is anything they can’t imagine. Dr. Swope is a Nationally Board Certified Teacher and an AP Psychology Reader. He was a winner of the 2014 Excellence in Teaching Award by a division of the A.P.A. By using video lessons, online assessments, and interactive software , Dr. Swope is attempting to keep pace with the rapidly changing field of psychology education.
AP United States Government and Politics
Bill of Rights Institute – AP Government/Civics Resources
From website:
The Institute develops educational resources on American history and government, provides professional development opportunities to teachers, and runs student programs and scholarship contests. The Institute’s depth of knowledge is drawn from a full-time staff with more than 100 years of combined classroom experience, as well as from partners who are experts in their fields.
Since its founding, the Institute has published over 4000 resources, including hundreds of YouTube videos and current events lessons for middle and high school classrooms. All of its resources are designed to drive students to the United States Constitution and Founding documents as the foundation of their analysis of American history and current events.
Crash Course – U.S. Government and Politics
From website:
In 50 videos, Craig Benzine (aka WeezyWaiter) teaches you U.S. government and politics! The course is based on the 2014 AP U.S. Government and Politics curriculum.
By the end of this learning playlist, you will be able to:
- Become a more engaged and active citizen
- Understand how the US government works and how you can make it better for you and your community
- Explain the differences between the three branches of government
- Describe how political ideology, parties, and media influence elections and public policy
- Identify the limitations of democracy and the U.S. political system
From website:
What started as one man tutoring his cousin has grown into a more than 150-person organization. We’re a diverse team that has come together to work on an audacious mission: to provide a free world-class education for anyone, anywhere. We are developers, teachers, designers, strategists, scientists, and content specialists who passionately believe in inspiring the world to learn. A few great people can make a big difference.
Khan Academy offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empower learners to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom. We tackle math, science, computing, history, art history, economics, and more, including K-14 and test preparation (SAT, Praxis, LSAT) content. We focus on skill mastery to help learners establish strong foundations, so there’s no limit to what they can learn next!
Resources for History Teachers
From website:
Robert W. Maloy is a senior lecturer in the College of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he coordinates the history teacher education program and co-directs the TEAMS Tutoring Project, a community engagement/service learning initiative through which university students provide academic tutoring to culturally and linguistically diverse students in public schools throughout the Connecticut River Valley region of western Massachusetts. His research focuses on technology and educational change, teacher education, democratic teaching, and student learning.
From website:
I have loved history and politics since I was in middle school and am very blessed to be able to teach history and government for a living. I began teaching high school history courses in 2008. In the same year, I launched TomRichey.net to help my students (and me) keep up with course materials and assignments, but it’s grown into a way for me to also share my work with anyone who can make use of it. I’m honored that people have found my instructional materials helpful in public, private, and home school settings. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there’s anything I can add to this site that can help you.
In 2012, I started filming video lectures and posting them on my YouTube channel so that students who were absent wouldn’t miss classroom instruction. What started several years ago as an extension of my classroom has become a classroom for the world, with over 175,00 subscribers and 20 million views – with about a third of the views each month coming from outside of the United States. I’m looking forward to continuing to open up my classroom to the world through my website and YouTube channel.
AP United States History
EDSITEment Advanced Placement U.S. History Lessons
From website:
EDSITEment brings online humanities resources directly to the classroom through exemplary lesson plans and student activities. EDSITEment develops AP level lessons based on primary source documents that cover the most frequently taught topics and themes in American history. Many of these lessons were developed by teachers and scholars associated with the City University of New York and Ashland University.
Gilder Lehrman AP US History Study Guide
This course will introduce students to the first six periods covered by the College Board’s AP United States History curriculum. Students will use the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s APUSH Study Guide and primary source documents to discuss major historical topics. Additionally, this course will focus on strategies for reading and writing that will prove essential for any student planning to take the APUSH exam. The aim is to enable students to get the highest possible score on the exam and to come away with the deepest understanding of American history.
From website:
This course presents a complete set of lessons meant to help students for the College Board’s Advanced Placement United States History test. It provides a rich set of interatcive media and multimedia presentations that explore the history of North America from pre-colonial times, though the forming of the United States, and the two hundred years since.
Khan Academy – AP/College U.S. History
From website:
What started as one man tutoring his cousin has grown into a more than 150-person organization. We’re a diverse team that has come together to work on an audacious mission: to provide a free world-class education for anyone, anywhere. We are developers, teachers, designers, strategists, scientists, and content specialists who passionately believe in inspiring the world to learn. A few great people can make a big difference.
Khan Academy offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empower learners to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom. We tackle math, science, computing, history, art history, economics, and more, including K-14 and test preparation (SAT, Praxis, LSAT) content. We focus on skill mastery to help learners establish strong foundations, so there’s no limit to what they can learn next!
Stanford History Education Group (SHEG)
From website:
The Stanford History Education Group is an award-winning research and development group that comprises Stanford faculty, staff, graduate students, post-docs, and visiting scholars. SHEG seeks to improve education by conducting research, working with school districts, and reaching directly into classrooms with free materials for teachers and students. SHEG’s Reading Like a Historian curriculum and Beyond the Bubble assessments have been downloaded more than 10 million times. SHEG’s current work focuses on how young people evaluate online content. SHEG has created a Civic Online Reasoning curriculum to help students develop the skills needed to navigate our current digital landscape.
From website:
We support teachers of American history, government and civics, believing they do the most important work in America. We help them bring the documents and debates of America’s past into the present through free document-based seminars, document collections both online and in print, and other resources. We are dedicated to making every American history, government, and civics class in America its best.
AP World History: Modern
From website:
Greetings fellow AP World History teacher. I created this website for my students but soon learned that many teachers were accessing my site and making use of my resources. Since then, I have tried to provide the AP World community with presentations and handouts they can use in their classrooms.
I have been teaching AP World History since 2012 and have scored AP World History essays for College Board since 2014.
I teach on an A/B block schedule. My classes are 90 minutes long and meet every other day for the school year (90 class days total). I try to vary my instruction between lecture, classroom activities, and skill-building experiences.
AP World History: Modern YouTube Channel
From website:
Whether your school year starts with in-person, hybrid/blended, or online learning, AP teachers can use the free, digital instructional resources in AP Classroom to provide students with daily instruction, practice, and feedback on every course topic and skill that’s tested on an AP Exam.
AP teachers and students can begin using AP Classroom resources immediately and from anywhere — from any phone, tablet, or computer with an internet connection — using their College Board usernames and passwords. Sign in at myap.collegeboard.org.
From website:
Fiveable is powered by the idea of social accountability. Just like study groups, we believe that working with someone else is better than working alone. We built Fiveable in the interest of helping students feel like they’re working side-by-side, virtually.
Fiveable helps you:
- Stay focused and organized
- Get motivated to be productive
- Join groups studying the same topics
We started this journey creating content and programs for AP students. As our community grew, we were fired up by how students supported each other in study groups, pomodoros, and other online communities. So we joined forces with Hours to create the ultimate study experience.
We’re on a mission to create a space where students can build community to study, collaborate, and find their own productive vibe.
From website:
Stephen Williams is an AP World History: Modern and AP Human Geography teacher with Denham Springs High School in Denham Springs, Louisiana. He created the website “Geaux History” to give his students a central location to view notes and any materials to help them learn.
New York City Department of Education – AP for All
From website:
We’re happy to offer these resources for unit and lesson planning for your AP courses. They represent the work of experienced AP teachers right here in New York City, many of whom teach students just like those you want to engage and support in your classes. However, only you can decide the extent to which these resources meet the academic, socioemotional, and cultural needs of your students. Even within a single unit or lesson, some elements may suit your students’ needs and others many not. We encourage you to consult these resources thoughtfully and modify supports as will be suitable for you and your students at any given point in time. You might decide to slow down one lesson and speed up another; you might decide a different (but still one of comparable rigor) illustration or text would be more accessible for your students. Those decisions, rightly, remain with you.
Please note, this a DRAFT RELEASE of these documents.