During World War I and World War II, hundreds of American Indians joined the US armed forces and used words from their traditional native languages as weapons.  The military asked them to develop secret communications based on their languages – and America’s enemies never deciphered the coded messages they sent.

“Code Talkers,” as they came to be known after WWII, are 20th century American Indian warriors and heroes who significantly aided the victories of the US and its allies.  This website tells their stories.

PBS LearningMedia offers several collections of Native American education materials for K-12 students and teachers.  You can select content by grade level and type of media.

Some collections focus on specific tribes.  Others focus on indigenous people in different states or regions.

From site:  From 1899 to 1929, photographer Edward S. Curtis documented Native Americans living west of the Mississippi, visiting more than eighty tribes while seeking to photograph their original customs and traditions. [Included] is a select sampling of the thousands of photos he produced during his thirty year career.

From site:

Native Knowledge 360° (NK360°) provides educators and students with new perspectives on Native American history and cultures. Most Americans have only been exposed to part of the story, as told from a single perspective through the lenses of popular media and textbooks. NK360° provides educational materials, virtual student programs, and teacher training that incorporate Native narratives, more comprehensive histories, and accurate information to enlighten and inform teaching and learning about Native America. NK360° challenges common assumptions about Native peoples and offers a view that includes not only the past but also the vibrancy of Native peoples and cultures today.

The museum’s extensive collections encompass a vast range of cultural material, including more that 800,000 works of extraordinary aesthetic, religious, and historical significance, as well as articles produced for everyday, utilitarian use. The collections span all major culture areas of the Americas, representing virtually all tribes of the United States, most of those of Canada, and a significant number of cultures from Central and South America as well as the Caribbean. Chronologically, the collections include artifacts from Paleo-Indian to contemporary arts and crafts. The museum’s holdings also include film and audiovisual collections, paper archives, and a photography archive of more than 300,000 images depicting both historic and contemporary Native American life.

Click on the interactive map to learn more about selected tribes.  Other activities help you to learn about their culture and history.

The site offers additional resources about individual tribes.