Colonial Williamsburg Offers Free Virtual Field Trip on Politics & Elections

I just received this great opportunity for social studies classrooms in my inbox: Colonial Williamsburg is offering a virtual field trip about elections and politics called "The Will of the People."  Teachers can access it for free for the entire month of September.  Here are the details:

Now that school’s out for the summer, I thought your readers might like a jump-start on next year’s lesson plans with Colonial Williamsburg’s ‘Gift to the Nation,’ a free month of its interactive electronic field trip. Designed to help enhance America’s political history and highlight the election process in the classroom, “The Will of the People” revolves around the bitter contest of 1800 between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and shows that smear tactics aren’t particular to the modern political era.

“The Will of the People” will be available at no charge during September, leading up to this year’s election.  Designed to bring the engaging and educational atmosphere of Colonial Williamsburg to classrooms across America, the electronic field trip is an immersion for both teachers and students in authentic historical content. Teachers will be provided with multi-disciplinary lesson plans, teacher activities and program scripts while students can take part in history with interactive resources and web activities.

To register, log on to http://giftnation.history.org. The program is available at no cost from Sept. 1-Sept. 30. After September, “the Will of the People” will be available for $120 per school. Registration is open from now through the month of September.