Written by educators for educators, the OER Project blog holds a treasure trove of teaching materials, classroom insights, teaching strategies and the latest research to strengthen your practice.
  • Upcoming changes to oerproject.com

    By the OER Project Team We’re counting down the days to July 9, 2025, and we can barely contain our excitement! OER Project is about to get a major upgrade, and we can’t wait for you to see what’s in store. Our team has been working...
  • OER Project updates for 2025–26

    By OER Project Team Two years ago, OER Project hit a major milestone—our 10th anniversary! If you’ve been with us on this ride, you know big anniversaries bring big emotions. We’re beyond proud of a decade spent sharing what we beli...
  • Teaching globalization: Lesson plans for a connected world

    By Nate Bowling At no other time in human history would a life like mine have been possible. I’m a US citizen born in the furthest northwest corner of the country—a region that was occupied exclusively by Indigenous people for thousands o...
  • Future of globalization

    By Jamais Cascio The future of globalization—the cross-border trade of goods, services, and culture that has been the dominant economic practice since the end of World War II—has become highly uncertain in recent years. Although it’...
  • Exciting Climate Project updates

    With Earth Day right around the corner, it’s the perfect time to check out Climate Project—again, or for the first time. Climate Project is a new take on climate education, designed to equip students with an understanding of the realistic...
  • Yes to critical thinking... but add a dose of 'critical ignoring'

    By Sam Wineburg Note from the OER Project Team The blog posts shared here, authored by independent contributors, are intended to provide diverse perspectives on issues having significant impact on the field of education. These opinions are solely tho...
  • Using AI tools with OER Project resources: A guide for teachers

    By the OER Project Team Not long ago, the idea of AI in the classroom seemed like science fiction. Today, it’s a reality we can’t ignore. As educators, we’ve witnessed technology shift—from computers in the classroom to the in...
  • The Industrial Revolution: Unlocking the modern world

    By Nate Bowling, Teacher, American Community School of Abu Dhabi Wanted: History Salesperson At its core, teaching world history is a sales job. We have to convince students to care about events and empires far removed from them in space and time. Ho...
  • Assassin’s Screed: History, video games, and culture wars

    By Bennett Sherry and Trevor Getz  We all have our ways of turning off work (or schoolwork) and chilling. But when you teach history, you may find that your job intrudes into your downtime—either because you notice historical inaccuracies ...
  • Oceanic history: Developing a single ocean global trade network

    By Bram Hubbell Bridging oceans We grow up thinking that history happens on land. We’re taught that societies are land-based and that oceans are borders and barriers. For example, in “America the Beautiful,” we sing about the United...
  • Lesson Plan: Oceanic Connections

    How do oceans connect societies?  Humans have been sailing the seas for at least the past 80,000 years. Whether in the rafts and dugout canoes used to migrate to Australia and the Americas, or aboard the gigantic cruise ships that travel to port...
  • Eleven Black History Month resources for high schoolers

    By the OER Project Team It’s easy to conflate Black American history with Black history in general—but it’s not possible to teach students to understand the glories and tragedies of the contemporary Black experience without looking ...
  • Global conflict: Deploying CCOT in the classroom

    By Bridgette Byrd O’Connor, OER Project Team At this point in the school year, you and your students may be about to embark on the history of the world wars or maybe even the Cold War. Both are pertinent topics, providing valuable background (a...
  • The Cold War ended in 1991…right?

    By Bennett Sherry and Trevor Getz, OER Project Team The United States funds proxy wars against authoritarian and communist regimes. A Russian leader threatens nuclear retaliation. The US, Russia, and China build elaborate alliance systems agains...
  • Lesson Plan: Global Conflicts

    From the start of World War I in 1914 to the end of the Cold War in 1991, the world experienced almost a century of continuous global conflict. While the end of each of these major conflicts of the twentieth century was celebrated as the potential en...
  • Lesson Plan: Ancient Societies

    What Did the Ancients Give Us? Many students are unaware of how much our modern world owes to the ancients. But the innovations of ancient societies gave us things such as concrete, the structure of government, makeup, calendars, geometry, and so muc...
  • You can thank the ancients

    By Bridgette Byrd O’Connor The legacy of the ancient world is very much alive in the minds of people everywhere. We offer as proof the number of people who visit ancient ruins each year: The ancient Maya ruins of Chichén Itzá in ...
  • Lesson Plan: Global Reform Movements

    Comparison: Women's Suffrage Around the World The experiences of women throughout history differ across regions and time periods. But in comparing these narratives we can understand how common social expectations and challenges were similar regardles...
  • Noxious Reform: How London’s Big Stink drove progress

    By Bridgette Byrd O’Connor When students are thinking at the large scales of Big History and world history, they can easily conclude that human history is a story of constant progress. But progress isn’t a straight line; there can be obst...
  • Cultivating climate champions: A 3-D approach to teaching climate change

    By James Damico, PhD I'm excited to share some key insights and a practical instructional strategy for creating climate champions in your classroom. Key Insights The 3-D approach – viewing students as detectives, delegates, and doers - provide...
  • All the stars are closer

    By Bridgette Byrd O’Connor We owe a great deal of our modern knowledge about stars to a group of late-nineteenth-century computers. You may be thinking that the use of multiple computers that long ago would be impossible, since the first comput...
  • Lesson Plan: Starstruck

    After the Big Bang, our Universe was hot, dense plasma. For the first 200 million years of its existence, the Universe was in the Dark Ages. The formation of the first stars made our Universe much more complex and these stars became the engines of li...
  • Lesson Plan: Maps

    Humans have been making maps for thousands of years. In general, maps have gotten more detailed, more complex, and more precise over time. Today, you can find all sorts of maps, from maps depicting the effects of climate change to a map of a theme pa...
  • Here be dragons: Teaching world history in maps

    By Bennett Sherry, OER Project Team “A map is the greatest of all epic poems. Its lines and colors show the realization of great dreams.” ...
  • Feedback during writing: Prioritize and focus!

    By Annette O’Boyce As you sit down to grade a stack of essays, ever wish you had a few rubber stamps with certain handy phrases on them? “Add more evidence”; “that’s not a complete sentence”; or “cite your so...