Learn About The Government: For Kids
Uncle Ben’s Guide To Government: The Senate: https://bensguide.gpo.gov – Ben’s Guide to the U.S. Government, a service of the Government Publishing Office (GPO), is designed to inform students, parents, and educators about the Federal Government, which issues the publications and information products disseminated by the GPO’s Federal Depository Library Program. It is our hope that Ben’s Guide to the U.S. Government fulfills that role.
US Government for Kids: The Senate: https://www.ducksters.com – A fun and educational web site with lots of interesting content for kids. Write articles that are informative, easy to read, and interesting.
Library of Congress America’s Library: http://www.americaslibrary.gov – The site was designed by Library of Congress especially with young people in mind, but there are great stories for people of all ages, the largest library in the world and the nation’s library.
Resources for Political Data
Follow The Money: https://www.followthemoney.org – The nonpartisan, nonprofit, National Institute on Money in Politics promotes an accountable democracy by compiling comprehensive campaign-donor, lobbyist, and other information from government disclosure agencies nationwide and making it freely available to the public.
Political Ad Archive: https://politicaladarchive.org – The Political TV Ad Archive collected and, using innovative open source technology, tracked airings of political ads in key markets the 2016 election cycle. The collection also linked ads to fact-checks by national fact-checking organizations. In addition to tracking airings across key primary states, the collection includes ads that may air elsewhere or exclusively on social media.
Dark Money Watch: http://darkmoneywatch.org – Dark Money Watch is a hub for information about dark money in U.S. elections, to help the public understand how hidden donors can influence our political system.
Member Guide: https://memberguide.gpo.gov – This online Guide to the House and Senate Members of the 115TH Congress is intended to be a single point of access for Member information from several different official sources.
Federal Election Commission: https://www.fec.gov – Their job is to protect the integrity of the federal campaign finance process by providing transparency and fairly enforcing and administering federal campaign finance laws. This is good place to look up campaign contributors and amounts they contributed for each senator.
Open Secrets Data: https://www.opensecrets.org – Resource for federal campaign contributions, analysis, lobbying data tracking money in politics – FOLLOW THE MONEY TO MAKE A CHANGE. Good on page filters and easy to use.
Congress BIO Guide: https://bioguide.congress.gov – Congressional Biographical Directory, Great for finding historical information 1800’s – 1900’s.
GOVTRACK: https://www.govtrack.us – Use GovTrack to research and track legislation in the United States Congress, including Members of Congress, bills and resolutions, voting records, and committee activity.
Cspan: https://www.c-span.org – Live video gavel-to-gavel proceedings of the U.S. House of Representatives, US Senate, and to other forums where public policy is discussed, debated and decided, without editing, commentary or analysis and with a balanced presentation of points of view.
Ballotpedia: https://ballotpedia.org – The digital encyclopedia of American politics and elections, and inform people about politics by providing accurate and objective information about politics at all levels of government.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org – Largest open source digital encyclopedia.
Every Politician: https://everypolitician.org – The world’s Largest richest open source dataset on politicians. Great for international research projects. Want to build a website with real political data, this is a good place to start.
Fact Check: https://www.factcheck.org – Nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.
Vote Smart: https://votesmart.org – Vote Smart’s mission is to provide free, factual, unbiased information on candidates
and elected officials to ALL Americans.