Pics4Learning.com is an amazingly rich, copyright-friendly image library for teachers and students. Thousands of images been donated by students, teachers, and amateur photographers. What makes this site special is that by donating the images, permission has been granted for teachers and students to freely use the images in school projects!
You can browse by topics on the home page or search by keyword. You can also click on ‘Advanced Search’ and learn about advanced search techniques that may help you zero in on a specific image . You can even search by a photographer’s name.
Once you have found an image you want to use, click on it so that it will open in detailed view. Here you will see the photograph’s details including the photographer’s name, location and date taken, and image size, as well as a bibliography for the image. You can download the image or copy (Windows: right click>Save Image As) and then paste directly into your document.
Calling all photographers: If you have photographs that you have taken that you think would benefit the educational community, please consider contributing to Pics4Learning. Upload JPEG(.jpg) or PNG(.png) files, complete information for the image, and click the “Agree & Submit” button. It’s that simple. After your photograph has been approved, it will appear in Pics4Learning’s library.
Be sure to also check out their Lesson Plans with ideas for ways to integrate digital images across the curriculum.
Update: May 24, 2009
I just learned of a new digital images website and all of its photographs are in the public domain: Photos8 http://www.photos8.com. There are ads at the top of each page that you have to scroll past, but the quantity and quality of the photos make the resource worth investigating. Keywords have not been accurately assigned in all cases.
