World History Project 1200 to the Present

Ideal for states where high-school world history begins just before the Columbian Exchange and continues through today.

Teachers, register here Students, join class here

Ideal for grades

9–12

Course length (months)

3–12

Course materials

610+

The World History Project (WHP) course isn’t a typical march through time. Rather than teach history as a disconnected series of people and events, we strive to create a context through which students understand the past, orient themselves to the present, and prepare for the future.

Aligned: We’ve worked with many states and educators to ensure our world-history course is aligned to the vast majority of state standards for world history.
Grounded in research and best practices: OER Project works with teachers, scholars, and learning scientists to incorporate and share the latest learning insights and approaches.
Adaptable: Our built-in scaffolding tools allow you to meet a range of learning contexts and abilities in your classroom.
Skills-forward: Our course connects fundamental reading, writing, and critical-thinking skills to the content.
Professional development: OER Project teacher training is aligned to the curriculum and includes self-paced and real-time opportunities to advance your practice whenever works best for you.
Community: the OER Project Online Teacher Community is a supportive and helpful place for educators to get and share support, ideas, and inspiration.
Compatible: All course materials are downloadable, printable, and compatible for integration with the LMS of your choice. We also support Clever single sign-on and Google Classroom integration.

Skip to end of carousel

Thanks to World History Project, my first year teaching (in a pandemic!) was a success. The site is easy to navigate and put rigorous, relevant, standards-aligned lessons and resources at my fingertips. The materials are engaging and easily scaffolded for all students. I especially loved the scaffolding of skill-building throughout the course, which allowed me to monitor and measure student growth. I made it through the year confident that I was covering all the standards despite many remote and hybrid learning obstacles.

Denise-Marie, ninth-grade world history teacher, Bolivia, NC

WHP has changed the way I teach. Now my classroom is inquiry-driven and my students enjoy it! Because they get to take hold of their learning they are more engaged than ever before. With all of the scaffolding of skills and resources, even my struggling students are doing better. I have seen real growth. The difference in where they started and where they end up is amazing. This is a far better way to teach.

Rebecca, ninth- and tenth-grade world history teacher, Mesa, AZ

I use resources from the World History Project because they align to my state standards and the county’s Essential Curriculum while engaging students in diverse viewpoints and historical thinking skills. From the lesson on “Danger of a Single Story,” to the primary source analysis on the Holocaust, WHP resources provided students multiple narratives while offering many opportunities to develop critical skills like comparison, continuity and change over time, and contextualization. With scaffolded activities that lead students towards mastery and transfer of knowledge, these resources are invaluable.

Dennis, eleventh- and twelfth-grade modern world history teacher, Hagerstown, MD

Skip to start of carousel

Take a Closer Look

Preview a selection of essential course materials and resources to help you decide if this course is a good fit for your teaching needs.

OER Project Teaching Guide

PDF / 30 MB

WHP 1200 Course Guide

PDF / 21 MB

WHP 1200 Teacher Course Plan

PDF / 492 KB

WHP 1200 Practice Progressions

PDF / 128 KB

State-specific Planning Resources

WEBPAGE

NEED TO BEGIN YOUR WORLD HISTORY COURSE WITH THE EARLIEST HUMANS OR THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION?

We’ve got courses for that too.

Boost Skills Development with Supplemental Units

These short courses are the perfect way to extend an existing history or language arts curriculum.

77
Articles 36

Videos 25

Activities 16
Climate Project Extension

A supplemental unit that starts with evidence and ends with student-developed plans to reach net carbon zero by 2050.

Learn More
25
Articles 16

Activities 8

Closing 1
Project X: Teach Data Exploration and Analysis

Help students understand and use data to confront urgent world topics such as poverty, democracy, and climate. This 2-week supplement is designed for high-school students and includes 10 data-exploration exercises that lead up to a final class presentation.

Learn More
66
Prompts 25

Activities 13

Guide 3

Assignments 25
Project Score: Includes Automated Essay Scoring

Help students gain historical writing and literacy skills. Project Score includes lessons, tools, prompts, and automated essay scoring—an ideal supplement to extend your existing high-school social studies course.

Learn More