This page is designed to give teachers a guide to internet teaching resources that can be applied to teaching about the Middle East. All of the links will be to outside sources and therefore, the Outreach Office cannot be responsible for their content. The Outreach Office would like to thank Barbara Williams of Buena High School in Sierra Vista, Arizona for supplying some of the links listed below.

If you have a link that you believe would be helpful to other teachers, please email Outreach Coordinator Lisa Adeli.

Resources To Use in the Classroom:

• Some very short YouTube videos that you can use in your classroom:  Discovering the Atlas Mountans (geography of Morocco),  Hassan II Mosque (Casablanca, Morocco),  Ancient Mesopotamia, A Land Called Paradise (a great introduction to the variety of Muslims living in the U.S. and the world), 1001 Inventions and the Library of Secrets (about medieval Muslim contributions), Mehter Marsi (about the Ottoman Empire - and the Janissaries).
• Media Construction of the Middle East: A Digital Media Literacy Curriculum
  A site which provides useful lessons with visuals and the use of primary sources which high school/college students analyze to understand the role of the media in interpreting Middle East issues.
•  Middle Eastern American Resources Online
  A site which offeres teaching resources on Middle Eastern Americans.
• Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center Indian Ocean History
  A site which provides an interactive tour through the history of the Indian Ocean trade routes.  (The many lessons which go with it cover world history, economics, geography, and literature standards.
• The African and Middle East Reading Room
  A division of the Library of Congress with images and literature from Africa and the Middle East.
• Choices
  The Brown University Watson Institute for International Studies is developing project-based teaching units for high school classes, many of which are free for teachers to use.  Check out their recent lessons on Afghanistan and on the 2011 Arab Spring revolts.  
• Teach MidEast
  A site with information about various aspects of the Middle East, maps, activities, resources, and more.

• Crayola Calendars
  The Crayola site has a calendar with holidays from various religions and cultures. These include Islamic and Jewish holidays. If you click on the holiday it will take you to a page of actitivies.
• Children and Youth in History
  A site that has teaching resources about various regions of the world. This site includes lesson plans and primary source documents.

• Ramadan Lantern Lesson Plan
  Published my America's Muslim Family Magazine, this lesson plan allows students to make their own Ramadan lanterns like those which are hung in Middle Eastern countries during the holiday.

• Celebrating Ramadan: A Resource for Educators
  Created by the Outreach Office at Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies, this packet provides information and lesson plans about Ramadan.

• Middle East Geography
  A site that provides geography online games in order to learn the countries, capitals and bodies of water of the Middle East.

• Islamic Art and Geometric Design Lesson
  Published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this is a packet which provides information about Islamic art with pictures, lesson plans, and instructions.

• Bank Notes.com
  A site that provides information about and pictures of currency from around the world.

• The University of Chicago Middle East Library Archive
  A site that provides an archive of photos from the Middle East.

• Al-Mashriq
  A site dedicated to Middle Eastern music. The site has photos, sound clips, songs with translations, and other resources.

• Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
  A site from the University of Texas at Austin which contains maps of the Middle East from various time periods.

• Education World
  An education website that provides professional development articles for teachers, lesson plans, and lists of resources that give accurate information about Islam. Just type the subject into the search box.
• Center for Israel Education
  This site is for the Center for Israel Education, a group dedicated to depicting Israel accurately. The site provides useful background information, lesson plans and other curriculum building information.

• Outreach World
  A comprehensive one-stop resource for teaching international and area studies and foreign languages in the precollegiate classroom.

• National Geographic - Educational Resources
  A vast site emcompassing all geographic areas of the globe, including the Middle East and North Africa. National Geographic supports geography education through high-quality lesson plans, current maps and map outlines, a teacher store and much more.
  
• Bridging World History
  A free Annenberg Media set of videos, activities, lesson plans and more that can supplement any study of the Middle East. An intriguing feature is that it sees world history as an integrated whole and links commonalities. Very appealing to students. Also has World History Traveler with activities.
• World History Connected
  A teachers' resource of up-to-date scholarship and classroom ready materials and research. Superb quality and variety.

• Exploring Ancient World Cultures
  Links to excellent and relevant materials. It has a particularly good section on Islam, as well as on areas and specific topics.

• EdSitement - National Endowment for the Humanities
  This has a huge variety of lessons and resources on all sorts of history, culture and language. Strongest Middle Eastern resources are those on the ancient world.

• Best of History Websites
  Links to over 1000 sites that have lesson plans, activities, games, quizzes and solid information. A product of the Center for Teaching History with Technology.
• Mideast Images - Lessons from the Past for the Future
  An online archive of images from the Middle East concerning topics of religion, people, design and architecture, and historic events. Also includes a showcase of ancient cities of the Middle East.
• Women in World History Curriculum
  Biographies, lesson plans, and other Web resources on women in world history including Shagrat al-Durr, a Sultan of Eqypt and Melisende, a Queen of Jerusalem.

Information/Professional Development for Teachers: 

• Middle East Outreach Council (MEOC)
  Established in 1981, the Middle East Outreach Council (MEOC) is a national nonprofit organization working to increase public knowledge about the peoples places, and cultures of the Middle East, including the Arab world, Israel, Iran, Turkey, and Afghanistan. MEOC’s target audience is non-specialists at the K-12 and college levels, although its services are also relevant to broader community needs.
• Middle East Studies Association (MESA)
  This site provides materials, links, and professional opportunities 

• Friends of Morocco: Learning Moroccan Arabic
  A site which provides resoucres for learning Moroccan Arabic.

• 30 Mosques 30 States
  A blog of two friends who went to 30 mosques in 30 states throughout the month of Ramadan to better understand Islam in America.

• Project Hijab
  Published by Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, this is a set of interviews with women from the Muslim world about why they do or do not choose to wear hijab.

• WebChron - The Web Chronology Project
  A spectacular array of hyperlinked chronologies for the whole world. Particularly includes a chronology of Islam and of other religions, of the Middle East and Southwest Asia, of technology, art, music, literature and speculative thought.

• The World History Association
  Full of links, resources, activities, and current scholarship.

• H-Net - Humanities and Social Sciences Online
  This is a phenomenal and ever growing list of newsletters, postings, discussion boards, multi-media materials, and much more. Targeted to particular areas of interest and scholarship.
• The Virtual Library
  This Swiss site has links to many regional studies and history locations.  It is especially good for different viewpoints and links to journals, publications, etc.
• Maps of War
  A visual history of war, religion and government. Of particular interest are the maps chronicling the Iraq War.

• Teaching Tolerance - Tolerance.org
  Founded in 1991 by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Teaching Tolerance is dedicated to reducing prejudice, improving intergroup relations and supporting equitable school experiences for our nation's children. Great resources on teaching about Arab-American experiences in the classroom.

Title VI National Resource Centers in Middle Eastern Studies

Title VI National Resource Centers in Middle Eastern Studies are funded by the Department of Education and charged with committing resources to Middle East outreach. Click here for a list of centers and links to their websites.