This page is intended to help ABE practitioners embed ELA skill instruction in knowledge-building lessons and units related to social studies, science, careers, and other topics of interest to adult learners. The links below lead to websites that can be helpful for finding background information, curriculum ideas, instructional resources, and texts to use for instruction.

• For information on using leveled texts and creating text sets, go to Text Complexity and Text Selection.
• For ELA units that embed ELA instruction in knowledge-building contexts, go to Existing ELA Curriculum for Adult Learners.
• For a PDF file of the information on this page, click below:
  • Texts for Building Knowledge

Museums 

• American Museum of Natural History [https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/educators]
• National Women’s History Museum [https://www.womenshistory.org/students-and-educators]
• The Exploratorium (science) [https://www.exploratorium.edu/education/teaching-resources]
• The Smithsonian--see their Learning Lab [https://learninglab.si.edu/], with "pre-packaged collections that contain lessons, activities, and recommended resources"
• United States Memorial Holocaust Museum [https://www.ushmm.org/]

Other nonprofit organizations’ websites

• Annenberg Learner [https://www.learner.org/]
• Digital Public Library of America: Primary Source Sets [https://dp.la/primary-source-sets]
• National Geographic Education [https://www.nationalgeographic.org/society/education-resources/]
• National Science Teachers Association--see their Daily Do [https://www.nsta.org/instructional-materials] (daily sensemaking activities), free NSTA e-books [https://my.nsta.org/ebooks/], and Learning Together [https://my.nsta.org/resource/7641/learning-together-understanding-and-a…] (teacher tips for teaching online)
• PBS/WGBH: Learning Media [https://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/]
• Primary Source [https://primarysource.org/]
• Population Education [https://populationeducation.org/]
• Teaching for Change [https://www.teachingforchange.org/]

Government Websites

• Census Bureau (U.S.) [https://www.census.gov/]
• Civics and Citizenship Toolkit (U.S.) [https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/outreach-tools/learn-about-the-civics…]
• Environment and Climate Change (Canada) [https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change.html]
• JetStream [https://www.noaa.gov/jetstream]
• Library of Congress (U.S.) [https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/about-this-program/]
• NASA (U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration) [https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/]
• NIH Science Curriculum Supplemental Series [https://science.education.nih.gov/], science units for middle and high school from the U.S. National Institutes of Health
• NOAA (U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) [https://www.noaa.gov/educational-resources]

Films, Trailers, Clips, etc. 

• Independent Television Service [https://itvs.org/]
• Ken Burns in the Classroom [https://www.sabes.org/content/american-history-ken-burns]
• Mama Hope: Stop the Pity, Start the Conversation [https://www.mamahope.org/media/stop-the-pity/]
• PBS: Independent Lens [https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/], and Point of View [https://www.pbs.org/pov/]
• Science video recommendations [https://sabes.org/content/science-videos-adults-curated-list] from a group led by David Rosen
• Lakshmi's recommendations for a few feature-length documentaries [https://sabes.org/content/movies-classroom]
• TED Talks [https://www.ted.com/]