The Scout Report -- Volume 22, Number 2

This website, hosted by Science & Plants for Schools (SAPS), is designed to help teachers "bring plant science alive." While the resources are organized according to the standards of the British school system, educators and enthusiasts the world over will find much to appreciate. Readers may like to scout the site by grade level, including Primary and Secondary. The Students section reveals sections devoted to plant-related Project Ideas, as well as Careers in Biology and Further Study. In addition, the SAPS Image Collection, which can be located under the library tab, provides over 200 freely downloadable photos for use in PowerPoints, worksheets, and posters. Finally, readers may link to the biology videos from the landing page. Here they will find informative videos demonstrating everything from photosynthesis to totipotency. [CNH]

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Visually stunning and freely available, this resource from the National Gallery of Art offers readers eight unique units that elucidate the textures, themes, and context of Italian Renaissance artists. Here readers will find thematic essays, more than 300 breathtaking images, 300+ glossary terms, and 42 primary source texts. Readers may like to start by briefly scouting all eight units, which include learning resources on the topics of Virgin and Child, Picturing Family and Friends, The Making of an Artist, A New World in Learning, and others. Each unit features a series of erudite essays, contextualized with related images, glossary terms, discussion questions, and classroom activities. For instance, the Virgin and Child unit begins with an introduction and then offers information about the origins of the iconic relationship, delves into the Power of Icons, and expands into a treatment of Raphael's Madonna's, among other classic works. For educators and art enthusiasts, this site can provide hours of inspiration. [CNH]

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Resources examining the employment outlook for careers in sociology can be a helpful aid for high school and college counselors, engaged parents, educators of all kinds, and students themselves who are considering career paths in the social sciences. Produced by the American Sociological Association (ASA), the information provided here is divided broadly into four categories: PhD Careers, Jobs and Careers for Sociology Majors and Baccalaureates, Masters Graduates and the Job Market, and Faculty Careers. Each category boasts about a dozen resources, all of which link to ASA survey results (trend data) or are freely downloadable in PDF or Powerpoint formats. Readers may be especially interested in the link to the American Sociological Association's trend data on Labor Force Participation Rates for Doctorate Social and Behavioral Scientists, which shows a significant downward shift in labor engagement for PhD graduates in a range of social science disciplines. Other resources, such as the PowerPoint entitled "The Future of Sociology: Minorities, Programs, and Jobs" can offer important information for future predictions. Those who are contemplating a career in any of the social sciences may find valuable information on this American Sociological Association website. [CNH]

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The Concord Consortium is a non-profit educational technology group that has been designing teacher-ready tools, from lesson plans to activities, for over two decades. It is no surprise, then, that this site offers such compelling visual simulations for biology educators and their students. Here readers will find over a dozen freely available and beautifully designed activities on subjects such as modeling populations of African lions, the ins and outs of cellular respiration, and the special bonding qualities of hydrogen atoms. Readers may like to begin with the Meiosis Lab, which can be located under What is Meiosis? Simply select Launch Activity and then follow the interactive steps toward deeper learning. [CNH]

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These videos from Edutopia, the dissemination arm of the George Lucas Foundation, serve as useful resources for teacher education faculty, graduate students in teacher education programs, and anyone else interested in learning more about PK-12 education today. Brief and interesting, they showcase the kinds of evidence-based learning strategies taking place in classrooms across the country. For instance, "Performance-Based Assessment: Making Math Relevant" features role-playing students at a Pennsylvania high school, suggesting an engaging way for students to assess their own skills using a performance-based simulation. Each video focuses on a particular school and a sidebar offers contextualizing demographics on the district, such as per pupil expenditures, racial makeup of the student body, and percentage of students receiving free lunch. [CNH]

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The Space Science Institute has built a website geared toward the constructivist learning approach, which posits that learning entails an active and fluid construction of knowledge. Here readers will find downloadable lessons that emphasize student participation and problem solving. Resources include an experiential guide to kinesthetic astronomy, an excellent Saturn Educator Guide, and other astronomy-related resources. To participate in the lesson plans and activities, readers may simply navigate to the topic of their choice and then download the files they find most helpful. For example, Solarscapes, which "presents middle school students with a short, focused study of the physical nature of the Sun," includes a brief introduction, four activities, several figures, and a helpful answer key. Educators looking for reliable space-related resources will find much to appreciate on the Space Science Institute's website.[CNH]

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Primary sources are the lifeblood of historical teaching and learning. For educators of 20th century American history, or those covering the civil rights movement more specifically, this resource features a collection of The Black Panther published between 1968 and 1973. Together, the newspapers provide an unusually vivid example of the kinds of rhetoric used by the Black Panther Party in its "revolutionary" challenges to federal and state lawmakers and its call to African Americans around the country to stand up for their civil rights. While the words and images in these historical documents may bring up strong feelings in teachers and students alike, they are a first-hand representation of the thoughts and feelings of an important group of activists in U.S. history. Far from complete, the collection is still substantial and readers may browse all 20 digital issues of the newspaper to find articles, images, and advertisements that will best facilitate particular lessons and assignments. [CNH]

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The Constitutional Rights Foundation (CRF), a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Los Angeles, seeks to educate young people about the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the benefits of civic participation. On the site, educators will find many Common Core ready resources. Readers may like to start with the Teachers tab, which navigates to the Teacher's Lounge. Here, lessons abound on such topics as the Syrian Refugee crisis, the foundations of Enlightenment philosophy, and the Federalist Papers. The CRF Blog, which boasts several dozen categories, from Africa to Intellectual Property to Urban Issues, is another strength of the site and links to related blogs and resources around the web. Of course, the aptly titled Free Lessons tab harbors many civics-related lessons drawn from various CRF publications, including U.S. Gun Policies and the Declaration of Independence, among others. [CNH]

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This report from the Pew Research Center offers readers a glimpse into the dynamics of parenting in 21st century America. In addition to the prominent take-home message -"outlook, worries, aspirations are strongly linked to financial situation" - readers will find many other insightful conclusions throughout the study's results. For instance, the survey confirms that, on average, mothers are more overprotective than fathers and that kids and parents are, on the whole, both surprisingly busy. It also seeks to answer the question of how much parental involvement is too much. Readers will find much to appreciate in the overview of the article on the landing page, or may delve deeper by downloading the full report in PDF form and examining the questionnaire that was used to gather data. [CNH]

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With museums and collections all over the world, the Guggenheim Foundation is one of the most influential art organizations around. Readers fascinated by modern and contemporary art will find a tremendous range of educational materials on Checklist, a blog where the Guggenheim's past, present and future shine through winning narratives about 20th and 21st century design, art, conservation, and other fascinating topics. Recent posts, which are composed by a number of well-informed authors, have explored the connections between art and medicine, examined the work of James Johnson Sweeney, and even featured a conversation with the granddaughter of Peggy Guggenheim in which she speaks about her grandmothers love of art, artists, and dogs.[CNH]

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The History of Advertising Trust (HAT), founded in the UK in 1974, seeks to preserve and study the rich history of advertising. Readers will find the fruits of this labor on the organization's website, where they may like to begin by scouting The Ads, an online gallery featuring hundreds of ads in the categories of Food & Drink, Confectionery, Alcohol, and many others. Educators may also find the Free Teaching Resources section helpful, with access to such lessons as What is an Advertising Campaign? and Planning and Conducting a Campaign. This informative site provides a peek into the rich history of British advertising. [CNH]

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With over two million pages of Florida newspapers available for free viewing, the Florida Digital Newspaper Library is a boon to amateur historians everywhere. Materials in the collection date back to the early 19th century and culminate with current events. Readers are sure to find fascinating SubCollections, including those dedicated to the Digital Military Newspaper library, Ethnic Newspapers from Florida, Historic News Accounts of Florida, Florida Jewish Newspapers, and the Florida and Puerto Rico Newspaper Project. Readers may also scout the site using the Advanced Search and the Map Search features, as well as Map Browse, a service that shows red dots on a map of the world, each of which corresponds to a news story from the archive. For Florida enthusiasts, this historical newspaper archive will provide hours of reading pleasure. [CNH]

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Dwight Silverman has a lot of experience writing about tech. He's written three tech savvy books, spearheaded the efforts to bring the Houston Chronicle online in the early 2000s, and has won a host of awards for his online, tech-heavy journalism. Here readers will find chron.com's popular TechBlog, routinely updated with posts from Silverman and other technology bloggers. Readers may like to start with the content on the web page, which, at the time of this writing, highlighted the premier of the Beatles' music on streaming services, the FAA's drone registry, and a review of the top smartphones of 2015. An excellent search function lets readers scout the blog for particular topics, explore the archives by month, or use the categories (Android, AOL, Apple TV, etc.) to filter previous entries. [CNH]

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The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley harbors a mission to use breaking research in psychology, sociology, and neuroscience to offer readers ideas and skills that can improve resilience, compassion, and other aspects of well-being. It's no surprise, then, that the organization's podcast is a virtual storehouse of practical wisdom. Here readers will find interviews with such luminaries as positive psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky, self-compassion researcher Kristin Neff, and the "happiness guru," Srikumar Rao, who describes how to find meaning and joy in working life. For readers who prefer visual text, transcripts are also available for each interview. This excellent site will be a great boon to readers who are looking for research-based guidance on love, work, parenting, family, mindfulness, and more. [CNH]

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This continually updated and stunningly informative resource from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) offers readers free online access to entire books and a host of articles, workshop summaries, and other documents concerned with the life sciences and health care. Readers may like to scan the Quick Start Guide, which explains how to browse titles, search across content, and offers some helpful search tips. Also on the landing page, readers will find a New & Updated section and a Featured Titles section, both of which offer insights into the depths of the information available on the Bookshelf. The meat of the site can be accessed through the search engine. For instance, searching "pancreatic cancer" returns 2,608 items, 395 of which are freely accessible books. [CNH]

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What better region of the country to provide documentation on the history of the automobile and transportation than Southern California? Digitized by USC (University of Southern California), the Automobile Club's archive consists of roughly 1,200 items and includes photographs, engineering notebooks, and maps that illustrate the development of major Southern California transportation routes. Materials in the collection can be browsed or searched, and there's also a carousel timeline to explore and retrieve images by date, such as a 1939 photograph of a drive-in restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Users will also find some suggested topics, such as maps, engineering notebooks, freeway and road construction, Cahuenga Pass, Arroyo Seco, and the Santa Monica Freeway. Following the last topic provides eight views of this famous freeway under construction in 1958. [DS]

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Educators around the country (and the world) are looking for ways to leverage technologies to improve engagement and learning outcomes for their students. Socrative, an online, personalized learning site, enables teachers of all subjects to keep students engaged while assessing them in real time, using visualization and other advanced methods to help teachers track their students' progress. After signing up, the tool's dashboard lets users immediately begin customizing the site, building quizzes with multiple choice, true/false, and short answer formats. Sign up is just as easy for students, who can then access their instructors' predesigned site. For educators who are looking for efficient ways to "flip" their classrooms, this site can be a welcome tool. [CNH]

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There seems to be no end to the innovative free products Google launches. Google Sites, a wiki- and Web page-creation service is no exception. Besides being able to connect with and leverage all of Google's other products (Gmail, Maps, Calendar, Drive, Hangouts, etc.) right on the site, Google's intranet creation and management tool allows users to create a page with customizable and simple templates. While a Google account is necessary to use the service, it is easy to use. Multiple users can upload files and attachments, embed rich content (docs, videos, slideshows, etc.), work and share together, and, of course, use the Google search engine. For small businesses that are looking for a simple, collaborative, intranet service, or educators who are looking for an easy way to build and host a virtual classroom, Google Sites is a nice option. [CNH]

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