Recently the U.S. Department of Education launched a new and improved version of the much acclaimed web site, Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE). The new site makes it easier for users to find teaching and learning resources by offering, for the first time, a list of 500 educational topics and a redesigned home page. FREE provides educators with lesson plans, primary documents, science visualizations, math challenges, literary works, paintings, music manuscripts and many other vital classroom resources. The tool also combines important educational elements culled from the Library of Congress, Smithsonian, National Science Foundation, NASA, National Archives and other federal agencies. By integrating these important agencies and resources, FREE is able to provide comprehensive lesson plans. For example, one such plan helps teachers integrate 100 of the most important documents in U.S. history into class by providing a timeline covering the milestone documents along with in-depth descriptions.

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