OER Project

What OER Project Is

OER Project is a free, online social studies curriculum for middle and high school. Its site title sums it up as "Free, Standards Based Online History Curriculum", and its course catalog is titled for grades 6 to 12. Teachers get complete courses in Big History, World History, World History AP and Climate, plus teaching guides, professional development and a teacher community. The FAQ says OER stands for open educational resources, and argues that most free materials are one-off lessons that "neither link to a standard nor fit into a clear framework", whereas OER Project courses come with the instructional and professional support around them.

The buyer here is a teacher, school or district, and nothing is sold. Under "What does it cost?", the FAQ lists three things provided free of charge: all content and courseware, the professional development and teacher-training program, and access to the OER Project team for support. Students meet the courses through their teacher's class.

The Courses

Big History is, according to the FAQ, a social studies course "for middle- and junior-high-school students that spans 13.8 billion years of history", designed for sixth through eighth grade. It runs in seven units (What is Big History, History of the Universe and Earth, Life, Early Humans, Agriculture & Complex Societies, The Modern Age, The Future), organized around eight thresholds of increasing complexity. Each unit holds four to six lessons of articles, videos and activities, and every unit and lesson comes with a guide to key ideas, vocabulary, instructional strategies, sample answers and formative assessments. Skills include thinking across scales, making and testing claims, causal thinking and map analysis. The FAQ credits historian David Christian, professor emeritus at Macquarie University, as the "father" of Big History and an adviser to the course.

World History comes in three versions, each in nine units: Origins (early humans through today), 1200 (from just before the Columbian Exchange) and 1750 (from the Industrial Revolution). The FAQ explains the choice: the 1750 course suits states like California and New York whose world history standards begin around 1750, the 1200 course gives more context for the changes around 1450, and Origins fits standards that start with early humans. Teachers can also mix all three. The 1750 version, for example, opens with The World in 1750 and moves through units on Liberal and National Revolutions, Industrialization, Reform Movements, Industrial Empires, World War I, Interwar and World War II, and Cold War and Decolonization, before closing with Globalization. The course uses three frames, communities, networks, and production and distribution, and builds eight historical thinking practices, including sourcing, causation, comparison, contextualization and continuity and change over time (CCOT). It is designed with high school standards in mind.

World History AP is described as a free, College-Board-approved course aligned to the AP World History: Modern Course and Exam Description. The FAQ says, "College Board has approved the WH AP course materials as a college textbook, and has approved the WH AP syllabus as well", and teachers can submit that syllabus during the College Board audit. Exam preparation is built in: end-of-unit DBQ and LEQ assessments, SAQ Practice in each unit, a Thinking Tool for each practice progression, and Themes Notebook activities twice per unit. On the courses page it opens with Unit 0, Intro to World History, and closes with Unit 9, Globalization. The course was developed during a two-year pilot study, and the FAQ lists regular updates among its features, so teachers are not stuck with an out-of-date textbook.

Climate has five units, from Introduction to Climate Change through Impacts, Adaptation and Innovation, Decarbonization and Taking Action. The FAQ says it "can be taught as a full-semester program for a comprehensive investigation or through standalone lessons." Teachers who are not scientists are encouraged to take the role of lead learner, a claim-testing series helps students handle misinformation, and the course is built on what the FAQ calls climate optimism, ending with civic projects in students' own communities. The teaching guides page says it meets science, social studies and civics standards.

The FAQ describes a common district sequence: Big History in middle school, World History in early high school and World History AP for AP students, with Climate taught as a semester elective or blended into other courses.

Materials, Scaffolds and Assessment

Every course carries embedded learning supports: leveled articles, audio recordings and downloadable video transcripts. For World History, the FAQ promises "At least three Lexile-leveled versions of each article". Leveled articles are left out of World History AP because of College Board requirements. Big History also brings videos with captions and transcripts, comics, graphic biographies, interactive classroom activities, podcast clips, writing activities built on claims and counterclaims, and extension document-based questions; World History AP adds DBQs, LEQs and SAQs for exam practice. Assessments in Big History are optional and include rubrics, exit cards and formal writing.

The teaching guides library is large. There are guides for each historical thinking skill, with a tool and a feedback form for sourcing, causation, comparison, contextualization and CCOT, and anchor-chart posters plus a feedback form for claim testing. Three-step reading worksheets cover texts, data and graphic biographies, and a sourcing tool uses the acronym HAPPY. Teachers also find course overviews and pacing guides for every course, placement guides for primary sources and writing tasks, a world history maps index, and classroom posters, including History Frames posters by the artist Shepard Fairey. Two guides cover AI: one on using AI tools with OER Project resources and one on AI in the writing process.

A geography and maps strand introduces regional and global knowledge and invites "predictions, then map historical themes with causation and CCOT." The rubrics and graphic organizers, in the site's words, give students "the scaffolds they need to think like historians". Many guides carry a "Download or save an editable version" link.

Delivery and Integrations

All course content is online. The FAQ says articles and activities download as PDF, Word, Google Doc and ePub, and materials can be embedded in an LMS or Google Classroom. It names LMS integration with Google Classroom, Canvas and Schoology, says Clever can be used to reach the resources, and the help page offers Canvas common cartridges for the year-long courses and a guide to full-course Google Drive access.

Standards alignment documents show how the courses were built "with Common Core, state standards, and the C3 Framework in mind", with alignment documents for representative states.

Teacher Support and Community

Throughout the courses, a blue hammer icon opens teaching tips, which the site describes as "your teacher's edition of the OER Project 'textbook.'" Teachers can book a 15-minute call with an OER Project educator, email help@oerproject.com (the AP and Climate sections of the FAQ give team@oerproject.com), or use a separate Climate Teacher Community. The OER Project Teacher Community is an online forum where, according to the FAQ, teachers from around the world ask and answer questions and share lessons. The FAQ also mentions a live virtual webinar each month, and the 2025/26 PD events feature historians, authors, adventurers and scientists. Teachers who attended a PD event live can request a certificate of attendance, and recordings are posted as PD videos.

The FAQ says courses are codeveloped and vetted by partner schools and teachers around the United States, with academic input from Bob Bain of the University of Michigan and Trevor Getz, lead academic adviser for World History.

The homepage features a lesson of the week, Evaluating Climate Impacts from the Climate course, that anyone can try for free, and lessons can also be browsed by topic. Teachers quoted on the homepage include Bill, a history teacher in Georgia: "OER Project helped me to reimagine how and why I teach history without having to reinvent too many wheels on my own."

Who It Suits

OER Project fits social studies teachers in grades 6 to 12 who want a full, free course with the teacher's materials attached: a middle school teacher starting Big History, a high school teacher choosing the World History version that matches the state's start date, or an AP World History teacher who wants a College Board-approved textbook and syllabus at no cost. Science and civics teachers can draw on the Climate course a lesson at a time. Districts can use it as a sequence from middle school to AP.

It is a curriculum for teachers to run in class, not a self-paced course for an individual student, and its subject range stays within history and climate.