The study of people, their cultures and histories, and the places they live is, like science, a vast field, and the Internet has opened up some amazing new ways to explore it. For starters, students can now instantly access English-language newspapers, magazines and television stations from all over the world--10,000 of them, in fact—by visiting NewsDirectory.com. And if you'd like to see a map of the place you're interested in, there's no better place than Atlapedia, an online atlas beefed up with excellent text briefs on every country. The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, hosted by the University of Texas in Austin, also has modern maps of every country—plus dozens of cities worldwide—many produced by the United States government, so kids can download and use them for free. But the real gems here are in its vast collection of special interest maps: maps from old encyclopedias, maps showing the distribution of Native American tribes before settlers arrived, exploration and settlement maps, maps of historic sites and battlefields and more.

For history help, we like to visit HyperHistory Online, which contains an interactive time line--parts of which can be clicked for further information--to show the progress (or lack thereof) of civilization over the past 3,000 years. Older kids writing American history reports will want to check out the Internet Public Library's Presidents of the United States, which summarizes the essential decisions and events of every president's term, provides links to online biographies and gives the full text of memorable speeches.