For a comprehensive look at Congress past and present, try the congressional web site Thomas (http://thomas.loc.gov). In addition to a wealth of information about the current activities of Congress, Thomas provides a set of important historical documents on American government.

If you want to learn more about a particular representative or senator, there are several valuable sources. The House of Representatives maintains its own web site at www.house.gov. Similarly, the Senate web site can be found at www.senate.gov/. Both of these web sites provide access to the home pages of individual representatives and senators. Try finding the home page of your representative or one of your senators. On what committees does he or she serve? As an additional source, you might try Cap Web, the Internet Guide to the U.S. Congress (www.capweb.net/). In addition to offering access to representatives; and senators' individual home pages, Cap Web offers a complete set of district maps, so that you can examine the electoral district of each U.S. representative.

Are you interested in how particular House members or Senators voted on an issue? Project Vote Smart (www.vote-smart.org/) explains current legislation in easy-to-understand language and reports the recorded votes in both the House and the Senate. Try following some piece of legislation as it moved through Congress. What committees dealt with the legislation? Who sponsored the bill? What were the vote totals in the House and the Senate?