ERS Portal Featured Resource: ABC-CLIO (grades 7-12)

ABC-CLIO is an all-in-one curriculum solution featuring four social science subject areas: American History, American Government, World History: Ancient & Medieval, and World History: The Modern Era. More than 1,800 videos give students context that primes them to explore new concepts more deeply while providing tools for their research and inquiry. Self-assessment quizzes enable students to assess their comprehension of essential concepts and direct students to resources to review when questions are answered incorrectly. In addition to scaffolded inquiry activities for a variety of learning levels, the text-to-speech tool transforms all resources into a read-along for students who read below grade level or who learn best through listening; the translate tool offers translation of all resources into 12 languages. The Academic Success Corner features a helpful video series that gives students easy-to-follow steps for strengthening their writing, reading, research, and critical thinking skills. The research list tool allows educators to build customized lists of articles, essays, and primary and secondary sources to use in class and to assign to students. [Video] How to use ABC-CLIO Databases (3:48) [Video] ABC-CLIO Database Presentation (14:17)

Did You Know? - December 2021

ABC-CLIO is one of my favorite resources in the ERS Portal. It's a phenomenal place to start any journey into history on virtually any topic. Whether dealing with American Government, American History, or World History (Ancient to Modern), ABC-CLIO has the articles and resources your students will return to as they move through upper elementary grades, junior high, high school, and beyond.

Each reference article has a topic library, meaning anything you search for will return a selection of other topics to explore. Each topic library is further divided into sections such as Reference Articles, Biographies, Glossary Terms, Photos & Illustrations, Cultural Documents, and Video content. Researchers can also save, email, print, copy a link, create citations at the click of a button (in multiple citation styles), add to their Research Lists, Listen and even Translate.

Also included is an Academic Success Corner, highlighting various areas of information skills such as Researching, Writing, Reading, Critical Thinking, Working with Primary Sources, and Information Literacy. For example, when students click on Reading, they'll see videos on topics such as looking for meaning, active vs. passive voice, making and using inferences, and highlighting, annotating, and notetaking. That's just under Reading! The breadth of content is impressive.

We're proud to help make researching all history and social science content quick and easy by hosting ABC-CLIO in the ERS Portal. I guarantee that you'll learn something new if you log in yourself!