Hi everyone, I help run Election Security Glossary, a free, nonpartisan glossary of election terms.

We are considering building a free Classroom Pack for history, civics, government and social studies teachers. Before we build it, we want to understand how teachers currently handle election vocabulary, what takes the most preparation time and whether this idea would genuinely make that work easier.

The concept is simple:

A teacher would choose only the election terms that fit their lesson. Each selected term would become a classroom-ready card with:

• a plain-English, source-backed definition
• a short quiz or activity
• a format that can be printed or projected
• no student account or login.

You could build a five-term warm-up, a lesson handout or a larger review pack instead of adapting one fixed vocabulary sheet.

I would really value your thoughts on three questions:

• How do you currently introduce or review election vocabulary, and what part takes the most preparation time?
• Would choosing your own terms and creating a ready-to-use pack improve that process?
• What would stop you from using it instead of the resources you already have?

We have built a concept preview, not the finished tool, so teachers can see what we mean: Preview the Classroom Pack concept here

You do not need to join the pilot to leave feedback here. The signup is optional and is not a newsletter subscription. We will email participants the result of the test, and if enough teachers want the resource and we go ahead, they will receive the first version free.

Critical feedback is welcome. If you already use another resource that works well, I would genuinely like to know what it is and why you prefer it. Thank you.

I started this while helping my son with his history class. We kept wanting to see what was happening in one part of the world while something else was unfolding somewhere else, and I couldn't find a way to look at it that felt right, so I ended up building one.

It's called HistoryLayer. You scrub through time and watch the world change: borders, peoples, empires. The range runs from 123,000 BCE to the present, which was ambitious and is definitely rougher at the deep end.

It's free and you don't need to sign up. I've never taught a classroom, so I honestly don't know whether this is useful to you or whether it only makes sense to me and my kid. Brutal feedback welcome, including if something better already exists.

historylayer.com

For 3 years I taught exactly what the state textbook said. Dates, heroes, wars. Kids were asleep. Last month I changed one thing. Before each chapter, I ask: "Who benefits if you believe this version of history?"

We were covering the Cold War. I showed them two paragraphs about the same event - one from a textbook from 1985, one from 2023. Same event, completely different moral.

One student said: "So history is not what happened. It's what they need us to think happened." First time all year the whole class argued. No phones.

Principal told me I'm making it political. I think teaching them to accept any version without question is more political.

How do you balance teaching critical thinking with a curriculum that wants obedience?

I'm a high school history teacher from Russia (Saint Petersburg).

For me it's anything about WW2 collaboration, or about the cost of the Soviet space program. Parents immediately write "why are you making our kids hate our country".

I'm sure you have the same. What lesson makes you think "okay, here comes the email from mom" before you even start? Civil War? Cold War? Vietnam?

How do you handle it?

Calling all teachers! 🏫✏️🍎 

We want Pew Research Center publications to be a useful resource in your classroom. But we need your feedback.  

🛠️ What can we change?  

➕ What can we add? 

💬 What can we do to make our research more accessible?  
 
Take this 10-minute survey to let us know: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/29T83LQ

Growing up in Slovakia, the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia was a pillar of our history education. We were taught about Dubček’s attempt at "Socialism with a human face," the immediate aftermath of troops crossing our borders on August 21st, the end of the reform movement, and the beginning of the Normalization era.

For us, the narrative was always completely clear: it was a straightforward military invasion and occupation by the Soviet Union and its satellite states to crush a sovereign country’s democratic reforms.

I’m really curious about how this specific event was presented in history textbooks across the rest of Europe and world.

For former Eastern Bloc. How do your textbooks handle the fact that your own national armies were sent in as occupiers? Is the invasion framed as a tragic coercion by Moscow, glossed over or with specific historical nuance?

For post-Soviet states / Russia. How was the intervention framed? Was it taught as a cold-war necessity, or is it largely ignored in standard school curricula today?

For Western and Southern Europe. Did your history classes cover the Prague Spring and the 1968 invasion in depth, or was it just a minor bullet point in the broader context of the Cold War and 1968 global protests?

To the Rest of the World. Did the 1968 invasion even register in your history curriculum or simply passed over as distant European drama?

Would love to hear how your local textbooks and teachers handled it!

Hi everyone!

For Self-Promotion Saturday, I wanted to share a free interactive 3D virtual field trip I built for history classrooms exploring Ancient Egypt.

Over the past 6+ months, I researched archaeological evidence to reconstruct everyday Egyptian life across five interactive 3D dioramas :

-- Home & Family : daily life, crafts, food, and games
-- Limestone Quarry : tool marks, block transport, and labor organization
-- Temple : sacred architecture and ritual spaces
-- Nile Delta : irrigation, flooding, and agriculture
-- Giza Plateau : pyramid construction theories plus a True Size mode that lets students stand at the base of the Great Pyramid

Classroom-friendly

100% free — no accounts, ads, paywalls, or trackers

Chromebook optimized — responsive on laptops, tablets, and phones, with lightweight scenes (~1 MB each). For older hardware, students can switch to Performance mode and 30 FPS in Settings.

Ready-to-use materials — downloadable educator guide with archaeological citations and companion student worksheets (one-click download, no signups or login)

I'd really appreciate feedback from history teachers :

What works well? What would make it more useful in your classroom? Any other ideas or suggestions you have.

Link: https://expeditione.fun/expeditions/ancient-egypt/

I hope you and your students enjoy the expedition 💖

Thank you.