Elementary: a curiosity-first entry course

Grasp the "big picture" and "ways of seeing" in 3–10 minutes. Easy to spin off inquiry questions.

The standard map service that lets you cut across maps, routes, Street View, and reviews worldwide. With Gemini AI–powered "Ask Maps" you can do natural conversational searches, and the 3D immersive navigation lets you confirm a route with on-site feel. A starting point for places, facilities, and traffic — usable at any age.

Layer topographic maps, aerial photos, elevation, and disaster information to read the "why of place".

Quickly strengthen the foundations of geography inquiry: bearings, scales, map symbols.

An entry that makes statistics "not scary". A first step in reading numbers.

Learn ways to see natural history and science from real examples of exhibits and research.

The official kids' portal starring JMA mascot 'Harerūn'. Entry point for weather and meteorology.

Animated series introducing JMA's work and the science behind weather.

Official JMA pamphlet explaining the role and work of Japan's meteorological agency.

An illustrated web encyclopedia from an educational publisher covering science and nature.

Programs and content for young children and elementary students, organized by theme.

JAXA's fun entry point: space exploration news, games, and activities for young learners.

Elementary-to-high-school content from Japan's ocean research and development agency.

Activities of the National Institute of Polar Research, Science Museum exhibits, and aurora footage.

Video content, research data, and educational materials from Japan's national astronomy research center.

The Ministry of Education's learning support portal for children, organized by subject.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs' kids' site: learn, research, and play with countries of the world.

Agriculture, forestry, and fisheries explained for children — official Ministry portal.

Kids' videos and explanations from Japan's Coast Guard on maritime safety.

Child-friendly explanations of traffic safety, crime prevention, and community policing.

The NPA's kids page covering safety, traffic rules, and police work for children.

Video content and explanations of Japan's Self-Defense Forces, made accessible for children.

The Ministry of Justice's children's portal on laws, courts, human rights, and immigration.

Kids and family portal of the US Library of Congress.

NASA's official kids' site for upper elementary: space and Earth science.

Learn about climate change through games and animations — NASA's official kids' site.

NASA's official kids' club: games, activities, and content about space and Earth science.

Children's media to explore countries, animals, nature, and peoples of the world.

Encyclopaedia Britannica's kid-friendly portal — reliable reference for school research.

BBC's curriculum-aligned learning platform with video explanations and quizzes for UK school subjects.

DK's richly illustrated kids' encyclopedia covering science, history, nature, and space.

Children's rights, SDGs, videos, quizzes, and research content in multiple languages.

Tokyo's official disaster preparedness workbook for elementary school students.

Family-focused disaster preparedness content — easy first steps for children and guardians.

400+ geography quizzes covering countries, capitals, flags, oceans, and lakes.

World changes since 1800 and Dollar Street: what life looks like sorted by income level.

Real-time global flight tracking — see aircraft positions, routes, and flight data live.

Real-time global vessel tracking using AIS data — ships, ferries, and cargo.

Traditional Japanese performing arts — kabuki, noh, bunraku — explained for children with video.

MIT Media Lab's free visual programming platform for ages 8–16.

Community-built Scratch projects simulating earthquakes and disaster scenarios for learning.

Curated Scratch studio with student-made disaster-preparedness simulations.

Scratch studio with community-created disaster information and earthquake educational materials.

Kids' coding with Minecraft, Frozen, and more — game-based introduction to programming.

Minecraft's Hour of Code activities for introducing programming concepts to beginners.

A faster, mod-friendly Scratch compiler — run and share Scratch projects at higher speed.

Scratch educator community operated by the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

A free digital picture book with read-aloud narration of Japanese mythology — the Jimmu Tosei legend.

Japan's national library for children's literature — rare and historical children's books from Japan and abroad.

A "kid-oriented" entry that walks through the work and structure of the national government in one go.

Read the news in plain Japanese → easy to turn social issues into inquiry topics.

"Exhibition-style overviews" you can read by theme. The way to look at sources naturally develops.

A "kids-oriented" entry to start learning about disasters. A perfect match for local inquiry.

Catch the inside stories of historical decisions in Japan and the world in 15–30 minute videos.

Grasp the dense stories of Sengoku warlords through dramatic visuals faithful to historical fact.

The Smithsonian — one of the world's largest museum complexes — publishes its images, 3D models, and audio under CC0 Open Access. Young readers and researchers alike can reach world-class primary materials through the same door.

A free, collaboratively built encyclopedia of living things, compiled by public institutions, museums, and researchers worldwide. Photos, taxonomy, and distribution maps make it easy to trace "what is this creature?" from a name. English text, but readable even at elementary level through images and maps.

A cross-cultural hub that brings together collections from museums and cultural sites worldwide, including Street View tours inside institutions. Accessible for children, but since it is privately operated, always trace each work back to its source institution.

The official list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites — search by country, region, and category.

Learn ways to see field sites and how to grasp value, with ruins and cultural properties as material.

Official commentary by the national museum. A useful entry to works, eras, and techniques.

Search by place name and the "layers of regional culture" become visible.

48 Japanese Geoparks, 10 of which are UNESCO Global Geoparks.

3D view and VR tours of the National Museum of Nature and Science exhibits.

3D data experience: T. rex skeletons and taxidermied animal specimens.

Virtual tours and exhibition content from the National Institute of Polar Research science museum.

Interactive quizzes and simulators to learn about weather, typhoons, and earthquakes in a fun way.

Nationwide current conditions, forecasts, and rain-cloud radar from the Japan Weather Association.

Visible imagery from Himawari-8/9, updated every 2.5 minutes over Japan, with 11 zoom levels.

Wind and ocean current flows animated on a globe. Japanese interface available.

Multi-layer visualization: radar, satellite, wind, rain, temperature, clouds, waves, and air quality.

Wind depicted as streamlines. Models: GFS, HRRR, GEM, ICON. Ad-free.

NASA 3D visual tool to explore Earth, the solar system, and space.

A geographic browser to fly around the entire planet in 3D. Visually grasp "the world now and then" through satellite imagery, terrain, 3D buildings, and Timelapse (year-by-year change of satellite photos). The "Voyager" feature also hosts 3D tours of World Heritage sites and stories on endangered species and the SDGs. An entry to geography, history, disaster prevention, and international comparison — usable at any age.

Confirm nationwide disaster risks (flood, landslide, storm surge, tsunami, etc.) from MLIT via the "Layered Hazard Map" and "My Town Hazard Map". An entry for local disaster prevention and geography inquiry.

Overlay Edo, Meiji, and prewar old maps semi-transparently on modern maps. Visually read changes in place names, waterways, and roads. An entry to historical geography, usable from elementary to professional.

A public digital archive at Stanford University Libraries holding over 150,000 historical maps of the world, 15th century to present, at high resolution. Even young learners can enjoy "how people used to picture the world" as images.

Side-by-side switching of topographic maps from the Meiji era onward for 59 regions across Japan.

Old maps from Japan's Geospatial Information Authority — from Edo-period surveying to early modern topographic maps.

Real-time water level monitoring for rivers nationwide — video-linked observation points.

Switch between aerial photos from the 1970s to the present — some areas from 1936 — in a two-panel linked view.

Type any city name and this visualiser draws every road it finds in OpenStreetMap as a single line-art plate. Lets you read the shape of a city at a glance — grid, radial, or organic where rivers and coastlines have reshaped it — and line up two cities side by side for comparison.

Ideal for practicing reading images as primary sources.

Ideal as a first contact point with history.

Japanese folktales from across the country, in audio narration and text.

Japan's national Ainu museum and symbolic space for indigenous Ainu culture and coexistence.

Database of the classic anime series 'Manga Nihon Mukashibanashi' — Japanese folktales in animation.

The official NHK for School hub for teachers. Reverse-look up programs, worksheets, lesson plans, and case studies by subject, grade, and unit. The standard go-to for new teachers who need materials that connect directly to tomorrow's lesson.

A friendly Japanese-history encyclopedia readable from elementary up. Clear explanations of figures, eras, and events. A vocabulary foothold new teachers can use right away as the opening reading or prompt material for a lesson.

The Ministry of Education's portal gathering classroom practice with 1:1 devices. Ideas are organized by subject and scene so new teachers can picture the first step of ICT use concretely.

A group of free teacher-facing educational journals from Teikoku-Shoin delivering lesson-research examples, latest scholarship, and practice reports across geography, history, and civics. The family includes the education magazine "Kizahashi", the elementary-school "Children and Maps", the junior-high "Shakaika no Shiori", and the high-school "ChiReKo" — particularly strong support for geography teachers' materials research.

The Library of Congress's teacher-facing page on using primary sources. Publishes primary materials for history, social studies, and literature together with questioning examples and lesson procedures. Useful both as source material for new teachers and as a reference model for experienced teachers designing inquiry-based lessons.

Integrated portal for school broadcast programs, web content, and archives.