Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

Discover a slick way to find Creative Commons pictures (pictures you are ALLOWED to use without copyright problems, simply by giving credit). Vecteezy searches for creative commons images and locates those with licenses that permit use in other activities and projects. Enter text or tags, and Vecteezy does the rest, providing thumbnail images for you to choose from. After you search, be sure you have checked the box in the LEFT sidebar of the search results, specifying that you want Creative Commons images, NOT commercial ones. Click to search again, if necessary. Choose from the results that appear below the dotted line. (Those above the line are images you must pay for!) Click on the image you like and double-check the license information under item 1 to be sure it is available for non-commercial use with attribution and can be used for "derivative works." Click the image itself to copy and paste its URL to use in image credits. Remember that Creative Commons DOES require that you give proper credit!
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tag(s): creative commons (29), images (269), search engines (50)

Use this searchable blog to locate images within the public domain for you to use on web sites, in multimedia projects, and more. The site provides complete source information on each image, as well as its rationale for treating the image as "public domain." Public Domain images are not subject to copyright restrictions, so you may use them in places that do not qualify for "Fair Use," such as on open web sites, blogs, etc. Though we are not legal experts and this review should in no way be deemed to be legal advice, our editors found that the evidence of public domain seems credible on this site. The site does include extensive advertising and links to non-education topics and blogs, the collection is very useful for teachers of any level or subject. Note: Because of extensive advertising and links, teachers should spell out specific consequences for following these non-educational links and may want to limit use of this site by students to times when you can monitor directly.

tag(s): clip art (10), images (269)

Pics4Learning offers free, safe images for educational use. Find pictures using the search feature or by choosing from the categories listed on the home page. Download selected images quickly using the included links to download to computers or Google Drive. Although it isn't required, each image also includes the citation for attributing work to the source.
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): creative commons (29), images (269)

Flickr allows you to upload and share images in an online location. It is not specifically an education site, so it has the drawback of possibly including "inappropriate" content. As a teaching tool, you can upload picture collections and "tag" them with a unique keyword so students can access them for various activities, such as creating sequenced "comic strips," making annotated posters, including photos in blogs, and other electronic projects. This is a great way to make the photos accessible for the students to use. Note: use the DIRECT URL to the specifically-tagged photos ("photosynthesisproject") or create a collection for each project.

tag(s): images (269), photography (130), Storage (6)

Welcome to the Library of Congress' photo archive. This site offers a searchable database containing thousands of photos all almost any subject. History and social studies teachers will find this a rich resource for "what was life like then?" images, old maps, and other printed matter. Note that not all of these images are guaranteed "copyright free," but this collection was established largely for educational and research uses, so most images are freely usable in that context.

tag(s): air (106), maps (209), posters (47)

This is a collection of downloadable historical images of life in Alaska. Image quality is adequate for either web or most publication use. The search feature - the only way to access images - finds species easily, but doesn't do as well with place names. The images are from several cultural heritage institutions across Alaska. Each institution has it's own policies regarding conditions for the use of its images. Some maybe used freely, and others may have restrictions. Be sure to check with the institute. Each image has an "identifier" number and you will need to contact the particular institute with that number to find out their "use" policies.

tag(s): air (106), alaska (20), copyright (46), states (122)

This is a nicely indexed, searchable collection of NASA photos whose topics range from aeronautics to space, the planets, and beyond. Most are copyright-free, since they were created for government use. While some image sizes are quite large, this could be a wonderful resource for creating web projects, student use, or other space and astronomy applications.

tag(s): air (106), images (269), solar system (108), space (213)

Unsplash offers breathtaking, high resolution imagery free for any use through a Creative Commons Zero license. Scroll through images to view options and download. No registration required; however, creating an account allows you to curate collections of images.

tag(s): creative commons (29), images (269), photography (130)