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Grade Level Social Studies Power is a product for grades 3–5.Cost Pricing is based on student enrollment: $2.50 per student for an individual school or $3.50 per student for an entire district. For those who already subscribe to another World Book product, these per student prices drop to $2.25 and $3.25. Call (800) 975-3250 or visit www.worldbook.com for more information or to order.Overview Social Studies Power from World Book is a Web-based supplemental resource for upper elementary students and teachers. The site features 103 lessons on a variety of social studies topics arranged into five units of study. Within each strand, specific topics are arranged into sections similar to what you might find in a textbook, with assessments and checks for understanding included along the way. Students can access each lesson at two different reading levels.The breadth of content is impressive, with lessons covering Community and Government; Parts of the World; Peoples and Cultures; World History; and War & Conflict. Included, too, are interactive maps, photos, videos, and tools for students to learn more about Social Studies concepts.Look and Feel The home screen is well organized and simple to navigate. Depending on screen resolution, there is little to no scrolling necessary—always a plus. The focus is on five social studies units, which appear as glossy multicolored buttons under the search box.Aside from the units, the home screen features four separate rectangular areas, set apart with different colors. When you dig in to these resources it quickly becomes clear that there's more content than meets the eye.Set against a green background is Literacy Tools, with links to extension activities, inquiry projects, critical thinking exercises, and graphic organizers.Below this is Geography & Civics Tools, with comprehensive map skills lessons, Flash-based geography games for the U.S., Canada, and Australia, interactive maps, an atlas, and state flag facts.Bottom center is an Important People area, featuring a scrollable group of key figures studied in Social Studies classes. Some are well known, others are more obscure. The day I visited, physician and social activist Hector Perez Garcia was featured. Each quick bio has a link to a full article on the individual.Rounding out the home page is a section called Compare Places. This is a slick, Flash-based tool that allows students to enter two countries, continents, or states to view their similarities and differences. I tried it out by comparing California to Argentina. After making the selections, the tool quickly listed key information about both places side-by-side. At a glance, I was able to see that the land area of Argentina was much greater than California, but that they are fairly close in terms of population. This tool is not exclusive to Social Studies Power (it's also included in their general reference encyclopedias, but is a welcome addition here.How It Works After clicking on a unit strand (say, World History, for example), more specific topics appear beneath bold subject headings (Ancient Explorers, Vikings, etc. are listed under Exploration). When the user hovers over a lesson, a call-out box appears with a lesson summary and Lexile score. From there, users have two choices—click the button for the at-grade reading level, or click the skyline icon below the button for a lower...Log In or Sign Up to Read More