LibGuides: Freely Available K-12 Teaching Resources: Finding OER for K-12

Open Education in K-12

Questions about OER in K-12?

The guide is maintained by Haley Walton, Librarian for Education and Open Scholarship at the Duke University Libraries. Triangle- and Triad-area teachers are welcome to contact Haley with questions about using OER. Duke's mission is to share knowledge in the service of society—including North Carolina teachers!

Freely Available Images

Looking for an image you can use in class?

Creative Commons Image Search
CC licensed images search engine.
Flickr Creative Commons
Search Flickr images under a CC license.
Wikimedia Commons
Historical and contemporary images contributed by participants. Millions of high-resolution images of art, architecture, design, people, historical events, diagrams, maps, and more.
Smithsonian Open Access
A collection of freely available images from the Smithsonian Museums' collections.

Curricular Materials

Curricular Materials Resources and Textbooks

#GoOpenNC
An OER community of practice, where NC educators can curate, create, and collaborate on openly-licensed instructional resources that are aligned to NC standards.
Carolina K-12 Database
This searchable database currently includes lesson plans aligned to the NC Essential Standards, as well as activities for use in school, after school and extra-curricular settings.
Achieve the Core
ELA / Literacy & Mathematics classroom resources, including lessons, assessments, and textbook adaptations.
"We believe challenging K-12 academic standards, in the context of culturally relevant teaching and equitable classroom practice, are non-negotiable when it comes to improving student outcomes."
Share My Lesson
Over half a million searchable free lesson plans and resources in every grade and subject.
CK-12
Freely available textbooks and classroom materials in K-12 math, science, and social studies.
Core Knowledge
The Core Knowledge Foundation publishes educational books and curricular materials in ELA, history and geography, science, and mathematics.
EDSITEment
Free resources for teachers, students, and parents searching for high-quality K-12 humanities education materials in the subject areas of history and social studies, literature and language arts, foreign languages, arts, and culture.
K-12 Libretexts
A collaborative project to create freely available, open textbooks in K-12 subjects such as economics, US government, spelling, and health.
Open Up Resources
OER collaborative curriculum project to create lessons and class materials in ELA and mathematics.
SERP Institute Educator Resources
Research-based resources in literacy, math, science, and social studies.
Siyavula Open Textbooks
In pursuit of making education accessible, Siyavula has produced book titles spanning Mathematics and Science subjects from Grades 4-12. These are high-quality, curriculum-aligned Open Educational Resources.
SmartHistory
Smarthistory’s free, award-winning digital content unlocks the expertise of hundreds of leading scholars, making the history of art accessible and engaging to more people.
The American Yawp
A Massively Collaborative Open U.S. History Textbook
Curriki Library
A searchable collection of lessons for all grade levels in a breadth of subjects.
HippoCampus
A collection of educational videos in 13 subjects.
The Open Video Project
By the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science, a curated collection of free historical videos.

Searchable OER Repositories

These repositories are collections of creator- and user-uploaded OER materials across countless topics and grade levels. Results can be fruitful, but could take more time to search and sort through than the K-12 resources above.

OER Commons K-12
The OER Commons is a non-profit organization that make OER across primary, secondary, and higher education findable. Each OER has a place for ratings and comments. You can re-share any adapted versions of the resources you've used in your classroom.
MERLOT
A vast collection of OER across disciplines and education levels. One of the oldest OER repositories and takes some practice to search.