K-12 Community Engagement: Resources, Research and Services
Teaching Resources for K-12
Grab the Mic - Jason Reynolds, young adult author and advocate
This is a forum for children and young adults to share their spaces with peers and tell their stories. It is a way for them to be heard and have a voices in a safe space to do so.
The links below are educators' guides for middle and high school students. It is filled with engaging activities and resources for youth to speak freely about what they are going through in today's society.
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National Institute of Health: STEM Teaching ResourcesThe free K-12 STEM education materials on this site are provided by the institutes and centers within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NIH grantees, including Science Education Partnership
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Resource Guide for Underserved Student PopulationsIt is important to meet the needs of ALL students that you are engaged with and provide the proper resources needed.
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Copyright and Creativity for Ethical Digital CitizensTeaching resources to help K-12 with copyright policies when developing their own content.
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Smithsonian Learning LabDistance learning resources, training and support resources for teachers, caregivers and students.
Where Do I Find Culturally Diverse Literature and Media?
Representation is a vital component when researching and finding literature for youth. It is valued more when youth see themselves represented in a story identical to their own. So when collecting literature whether it is in a classroom or building a collection for a library, diverse voices are very much important and very much valued in any community served.
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American Indians in Children's LiteratureAICL provides critical analysis of Indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books.
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Lee & Low BooksLee and Low publishes multicultural children's books for every age, including leveled books for beginning readers, picture books, early chapter books, middle grade, and young adult books.
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We Need Diverse BooksWe Need Diverse Books is an organization that advocates, promotes and honors literature for culturally diverse literature for youth.
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Cynthia Leitich SmithOfficial Author Site and Home of Children's & YA Lit Resources: Literature for Native American Children and Young Adults
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Cartoonists of Color DatabaseThe Cartoonists of Color, Queer Cartoonists, and Disabled Cartoonists databases were created and are maintained by cartoonist MariNaomi as a way to spotlight marginalized comics creators.
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Teaching For ChangeEducator Resources
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The Black Women Radicals Databaseis a Black feminist advocacy organization dedicated to uplifting and centering Black women and gender expansive people’s radical political activism
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Diverse Book Finderis a comprehensive collection of children's picture books featuring Black and Indigenous people and People of Color (BIPOC).
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Rich in ColorReading and Reviews on Diverse Books for Young Adults
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New American HistoryHistory is the turbulent, unpredictable, and deeply human record of everything that happened before this moment. Through interactive maps, video, audio, an algorithmic engine of journalism, and tools for educators, we hope to make visible what was previously invisible about our shared American story.
History’s Next Step -
Untold HistoryVideo history about those histories not covered in a textbook about the marginalized.
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Michigan Department of Education: Celebrating Authors of ColorEquity in Literacy.
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QueerYA Fiction for TeensIs a review of fiction of interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer, and questioning teenagers.
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LatinXs in Kid LiteratureReviews and exploring the world of Teen and Children in literature.
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KiBookaYouth literature written by Korean Authors.
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The Brown ShelfPushes the voice of Black writing and literature for youth.
Diverse Platforms and Tools to Use in the Classroom and Beyond
There are so many ways for K-12 to learn or engage when it comes to research and beyond. There were two primary platforms used consistently by educators and librarians over the pandemic: Zoom and Google Classroom. However there are so many more interactive tools that can be used including some of our popular ones like YouTube. This section will share and introduce tools when engaging with K-12.
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WakeletSave, organize and present multimedia content with your students, teachers and learning communities.
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PixtonIt is a design tool to help students be creative in using their writing and design skills.
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TalkingPointsTalkingPoints is a non-profit organization solely focused on family engagement for families of under-resourced, multilingual communities.
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Zoterois a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share research
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GoosechaseThis is an online platform for scavenger hunts.