This issue of Social Education offers two special sections. The first, whose guest editors are Mark C. Schug and William C. Wood, provides detailed information, insightful analyses, and useful resources for teaching about the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The second, edited by our Technology Department Editors, Michael J. Berson and Meghan McGlinn Manfra, introduces cutting-edge technologies that can both enhance student learning and enliven the social studies classroom.

In the opening article, Mark C. Schug compares the current coronavirus pandemic with the 1918 influenza pandemic that occurred at the end of World War I and took many more lives than the war itself. His article emphasizes the change in the economic role of the federal government in the last 100 years, as well as the significant increase in public health knowledge during that time period.

Three articles provide extensive information and perceptive analyses of the impact of the pandemic and the federal government’s response to it. Kim Holder and Scott Niederjohn survey the main effects of the pandemic on key economic indicators, including GDP, unemployment, consumer prices, and government spending, and identify resources that will assist students to examine the economic “shock they are currently living through.” (64) Ben Hamilton and Piyusha Mutreja compare the economic impact of the pandemic on the United States with its effects on three other Western democracies: Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Jane Ihrig and Scott Wolla discuss the rapid response of the Federal Reserve, which “leaned on its full range of tools” (78) by decreasing interest rates and taking other measures to stabilize financial markets and support the flow of credit into the economy.

The pandemic had a devastating effect on the financial situation of millions of households throughout the country. William C. Wood affirms that “it’s not too late to learn the lessons of 2020 for the future,” (81) and offers financial planning suggestions that are oriented specifically toward teachers.

In the concluding article of the first special section, Tawni Hunt Ferrarini introduces some exciting technological tools for teaching about economics, highlighting seven principles for using them in a way that can both engage and educate students.

The second special section in this issue, prepared by Michael J. Berson and Meghan McGlinn Manfra, presents educational technologies that can increase students’ interest in social studies. The development of machine learning tools has facilitated Internet searches for images and specialized information. In this special section’s first article, Benjamin Charles Germain Lee, Ilene R. Berson, and Michael J. Berson offer suggestions for integrating machine learning in the history classroom by showing how the Newspaper Navigator tool that Lee developed can select fascinating images and information about a specific theme from the 16+ million pages of digitized historical newspapers in the Chronicling America collection of the Library of Congress. The shift to remote instruction during the pandemic has required social studies teachers to develop new ways of providing scaffolding and support for student inquiries. Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Meghan Grant explore some notable responses to these challenges in an article that features personal accounts by five experienced social studies teachers (Kasey Turcol, Lauren Boop, David Beller, Mark Grow, and Anthony Grondziowski).

Extended reality technology allows students to interact virtually with historic and contemporary environments. Colleen Fitzpatrick, David Hicks, Todd Ogle, and Adam Friedman describe the potential of the technology to spark students’ curiosity and enhance their research skills in dealing with important and challenging topics.

Through their smartphones, students now have unprecedented capabilities to take photographs, but it can be difficult to construct projects that use these capabilities to promote learning, literacy, and life skills. Ricky Mullins and Cassidy Hall recommend a project-based learning approach that enables students to use the Seek App to capture images that they can use for first-person point-of-view assignments.

Outside the special sections, our Sources and Strategies column examines the first use of aerial technology for military reconnaissance in the United States in June 1861, shortly after the Civil War began, when Thaddeus Lowe sent President Lincoln observations from an ascent in a tethered balloon. Using engaging primary sources of the time, Michael Apfeldorf reviews the development of balloon technology during the war.

The C3 Framework emphasizes the need for students to write evidence-based claims, but they often need guidance to help them understand the characteristics of effective claims. In our Teaching the C3 Framework column, Ryan Lewis describes how he helped students improve their claim writing with a four-dimensional approach that focused on making their claims evidentiary, reasoned, clear, and accurate.

This issue of Social Education concludes with an article on the rule of law, which is the topic of this year’s Law Day on May 1, 2021. In the Lessons on the Law column, Will A. Gunn reviews the history of the concept of the rule of law in the United States, and identifes current challenges that show that “we can’t afford to take it for granted.” (123)

As always, the editors of Social Education welcome the comments of readers on any of the contributions to this issue at socialed@ncss.org