The Scout Report -- Volume 23, Number 2

For upper elementary and middle school mathematics instructors looking to enhance their curriculum with engaging games, videos, and more, Math Snacks provides a number of free resources. Developed by New Mexico State University's Media Productions & Learning Games Lab, Math Snacks is a collection of "[s]mart educational animations, games, and interactive tools that help mid-school learners better understand math concepts." These interactive tools are designed to engage young students - specifically those between third and seventh grade - in mathematics concepts. Each Snack addresses a range of topics including ratios and fractions, coordinate planes, and place values. This website also includes a number of resources to help instructors incorporate Math Snacks into their curriculum, including a teacher's guide (in video format) and a printable student guide. In addition, each animation is accompanied by a printable comic strip, allowing students to refer back to animations they viewed in class. All Math Snacks resources are available in both English and Spanish. [MMB]

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The Scout Report first featured HistoryLink in 2002, when this "first and largest encyclopedia of community history created expressly for the Internet" was five years old and focused specifically on the history of King County, Washington. Today, HistoryLink has broadened its scope to include the history of all of Washington state and has added a number of educational resources while continuing to expand its extensive online encyclopedia. As of this writing, the encyclopedia features 7,382 essays. Visitors who are generally interested in Washington's history may want to start on the site's homepage, which features a weekly "This Week Then" column and highlights essays that have been added to the encyclopedia in the past week. Visitors can also Search or Explore the encyclopedia via an interactive timeline, by topic, or by Washington state county. One highlight of HistoryLink is a collection of Slideshows, which can be accessed under the Explore tab. Meanwhile, instructors will find detailed, printable lesson plans - along with accompanying readings and PowerPoint presentations - in the Education section. These lessons are designed for elementary, middle, and high school students. [MMB]

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The World Oral Literature Project, a collaboration between the University of Cambridge Museum of Archeology and Anthropology and Yale University, is a recent initiative to document and preserve oral literature around the world. Between 2009 and 2013, project researchers worked with communities around the world to collect oral literature in a number of endangered languages. Oral literature, as the website explains, is "a broad term which may include ritual texts, curative chants, epic poems, musical genres, folk tales, creation tales, songs, myths, spells, legends, proverbs, riddles, tongue-twisters, word games, recitations, life histories or historical narratives." Visitors may explore the complete World Oral Literature Project collection - as well as a number of donated collections - via the Collections list (organized by head researcher, title, and date) or by using the Map, which charts each project by geographic area. In addition to audio recordings, there are videos, photographs, and more relating to over 30 languages and the communities that speak them. The World Oral Literature Project focuses specifically on languages spoken in Asia and the Pacific; however, the collection also includes languages spoken in other regions, including Sierra Leone, Egypt, and Greenland. [MMB]

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For neuroscience professionals, educators, and students, the University of London's Queen Square Library has compiled this extensive resource list of websites related to the history, science, and practice of neurology, neuroscience, and neurosurgery. These resources are helpfully annotated and sorted into categories. For example, in the Neuro-websites category, visitors will find a diverse selection of educational websites as well as links to more specific research lists. Meanwhile, in Neuro-history, visitors will find resources related to the history of neurology as well as the history of science and medicine more broadly. Educators may be especially interested in the Neuro-images section, which highlights sources of photographs and videos that may be of use in the classroom. Many of these images may also be appreciated by members of the general public interested in learning more about neuroscience. [MMB]

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Paideia is a pedagogical method that centers on Socratic seminars, or group discussions with open-ended questions. On this website from the National Paideia Center, educators can learn more about the Paideia method and download lesson plans for both K-12 students and adult learners. As of this write up, this website includes over 70 lesson plans, which teachers can browse by subject (Art, English and Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies) or by grade level. While some lesson plans require a paid subscription, many can be accessed by creating a free account. Lesson plans, along with accompanying classroom readings and resources, can be easily downloaded in PDF format. Lesson topics range from the Gettysburg Address to the Periodic Table of Elements to the book, Where the Wild Things Are. Interested teachers may also sign up to receive a free newsletter from the organization. [MMB]

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The National Study of Youth and Religion was a multi-year sociological study designed to explore how American youth engage in religious and spiritual practice and how religion and spirituality influence youth. The research project was conducted between 2001 and 2015 and headed by sociologists Christian Smith of the University of Notre Dame and Lisa Pearce at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with support from a team of sociologists across the country. On this website, visitors can learn more about the design and findings of this study. In the Research Findings section, readers can download full reports on a number of topics, including "Are American Youth Alienated from Organized Religion?" and "Family Religious Involvement and Quality of Family Relationships for Early Adolescents." Readers can also explore a number of published articles based on this research study and learn about nine books, along with a documentary co-directed by Smith, centered on this research. [MMB]

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From the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections comes The Digital Library for Decorative Arts and Material Culture, an extensive digitized library featuring archival materials that will be of interest to art historians and lovers of material culture. These materials, which span the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, include journals, illustrated natural history guides, design manuals, architectural sketches, and more. Visitors can browse this collection by item or by author. A few of the many gems in this collection include the complete archives of The Craftsman, a monthly journal published between 1900-1916; the four volume American Ornithology, or, the natural history of birds inhabiting the United States, not given by Wilson, with figures drawn, engraved, and colored for nature, authored by Charles Lucien Bonaparte between 1825 and 1833; and the complete text of the 1898 book, The Decoration of Houses, co-authored by novelist Edith Wharton and architect Ogden Codman, Jr. [MMB]

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The Fulweiler Laboratory at Boston University "focuses on biogeochemistry and ecosystem ecology from the watershed to the ocean." Headed by Wally Fulweiler, professor of biology and earth and environmental science at Boston University, the laboratory is engaged in a number of research projects, including explorations of how precipitation patterns impact salt marshes and how hypoxia - caused by increased nitrogen in the environment - impacts the ecosystem of Waquoit Bay. On this website, visitors can learn about ongoing research projects and check out links to related publications in a number of science journals. As of this writing, the team of researchers at Fulweiler Laboratory has published 52 articles. Some of these articles require purchase or paid subscriptions; others can be downloaded in full for free. Finally, one highlight of this website is the extensive photo gallery, which features a number of images taken throughout the course of laboratory research. These photographs, which can also be explored on individual research project pages, bring the team's research to life. [MMB]

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From the Tenement Museum comes this interactive, multimedia website dedicated to the history of 103 Orchard Street. Today, this address is the site of the Tenement Museum; throughout history, the apartment building at this address was home to a number of different families and communities. On the website's homepage, visitors can explore this apartment building through time by scrolling down the page. As they do so, they will hear music and see photographs and videos that illustrate life at 103 Orchard Street and its surrounding neighborhood throughout the twentieth century. Next, visitors can select one of three tabs (1950s: Lower East Side; 1960: Loisaida; and 1970s: Chinatown) to learn more about the experiences of 103 Orchard Street residents during these three decades. In each section, visitors will find a series of interviews with former tenants. Related materials including immigration documents, photographs, videos, maps, and interviews with historians accompany these interviews. Together, these interviews and related media powerfully illustrate the experiences of Jewish, Puerto Rican, and Chinese immigrants to New York City during the mid-twentieth century. [MMB]

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This August 2016 episode of Science Friday features a lively discussion between three educators on a number of questions relating to K-12 mathematics education. What mathematics skills should be taught in K-12 schools? How should these skills be taught? Should all students take the same mathematics courses? And what mathematical skills and concepts do students really need in the so-called "real world"? Participating in this discussion are political science professor Andrew Hacker, author of The Math Myth and Other STEM Delusions; Maria Droujkova, a mathematics curriculum developer and founder of Natural Math; and Pamela Weber Harris, author of Building Powerful Numeracy for Middle and High School Students. Hacker, Droujkova, and Harris have diverse perspectives on the aforementioned questions and share a number of interesting insights. This engaging discussion will be of interest to not only mathematics educators, but also to parents, guardians, and anyone with memories of their own mathematics education. [MMB]

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Lateral Magazine is an online publication that explores the intersections of science and society. Published monthly by the Young Australian Skeptics, Lateral Magazine is edited by a team of scientists and journalists and highlights work by emerging science writers. Each month, the magazine publishes feature articles on a shared monthly theme along with additional articles, editorials, and regular columns. In the December 2016 issue, Heart, readers will find an investigation about the history and future of heart transplants, a consideration of the possibility of artificial hearts, and an analysis of how the heart came to symbolize love and emotion. Regular columns in Lateral Magazine include Ethograms, an exploration of animal behavior; Field Studies, an investigation of current scientific research projects around the world; and Gene Dosage, which seeks to explain "what genome science is uncovering about each individual's unique response to drugs and pharmaceuticals." Visitors can explore past articles by Issue, or by Section, which categorizes articles by subjects including Life Science, Physical Science, and Philosophy and History. Interested readers can also sign up for an email subscription. [MMB]

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In contemporary Chicago, one can observe the influence of ancient Greek and Rome in the city's architecture, culture, theatre, and more. The Classicizing Chicago Project was undertaken by the Alice Kaplan Institute of Humanities and the Chabraja Center for Historical Studies, both at Northwestern University, to research and document this influence. Visitors can explore this research in a few different ways. On the site's homepage, visitors will find a link to two digital resources, ATLAS and the Bosher Collection. ATLAS features photographs, short essays, and videos that highlight the link between classical antiquity and contemporary Chicago. This collection may be browsed By Essays, By Engagement with Greek Sources, or By Engagement with Roman Sources. Meanwhile, The Bosher Collection is an extensive online database of materials related to performances of classical plays. The database is named after the late Kathryn Bosher, a classical studies scholar who played a central role in creating this collection. Finally, visitors can also check out a number of essays related to this project through the research tab. [MMB]

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Fiction Unbound is a group blog dedicated to critically reviewing and analyzing books in the genre of speculative fiction. Founded in January 2015, Fiction Unbound is authored by a number of speculative fiction authors and readers from Denver, Colorado. New visitors may want to start by checking out the group's introductory blog post, which one can find via an embedded link on the blog's About page. Here, readers can learn more about individual contributors and their literary tastes. The Contributors page, meanwhile, highlights each blog author's educational background and professional work. On the Blog, visitors will find reviews of new books, book and story appreciation posts, essays about television and film, and curiosities. Recent posts include a group appreciation of Octavia Butler's story, "Adulthood Rites;" a critique of overused tropes in science fiction television shows; and a review of the new young adult fiction novel Illuminae. [MMB]

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For a number of centuries, prior to the advent of the scientific revolution, "astrology was used as a tool for both treatment and diagnosis of any number of aches and pains." On this website, created by the Historical Medical Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia Digital Library, visitors can learn more about this perceived link between astrology and human health via a number of fascinating archival materials from the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. While none of these documents feature English text, each are accompanied with detailed annotations to enable contemporary visitors to appreciate their significance. For example, visitors can examine detailed illustrations from Margarita Philosophica, a 1517 encyclopedia. One such illustration, "The Zodiac Man," details how astrological signs influence different body parts. Meanwhile, a fifteenth century document, entitled Amicus Medicorum (which translates to "friend of physicians") highlights the controversial role of horoscopes during the early Renaissance years. As a whole, this collection highlights a fascinating and oft-overlooked aspect of European medical history. [MMB]

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Omer Ureta, a professional urban designer, has created this extensive and spectacular interactive map of building age in the city of Los Angeles. This map will be of interest to anyone familiar with the most populated city on the west coast as well as anyone with an interest in the history of U.S. architecture. On this map, each building is color-coded to denote the decade in which it was built. Visitors can explore the map - which includes all of Los Angeles County - by zooming in on neighborhoods of interest. Users can then hover their cursors over a specific location to view the building's address and date of construction. In addition, visitors can manipulate a color-coded timeline on this website to view building construction by decade or click on a colored clock to watch an animation of building construction over time. [MMB]

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Historical Book Images is a Tumblr site that selectively presents illustrations from books scanned by the Internet Archive for its eBooks and Texts collection. This segment of the Internet Archive, online since 2004, has over 10,000,000 fully accessible books and texts. Historical Book Images is surfacing interesting items from this large corpus and making them available for more users to comment, reblog, and use for other purposes (such as iPhone wallpaper). Want to see the whole book and more images? Titles and page numbers are provided to make for easy searching in the eBooks and Texts collection back at the Internet Archive, where you can see full text as well as images, or click on any image to go to the Internet Archive's Flickr stream. Historical Book Images is curated by Mark Sample, a professor of Digital Studies at Davidson College in North Carolina. [DS]

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Do you have a video on a DVD that you need to rip onto your computer? Or a video that you need to condense in size so that it can be downloaded more quickly, allowing you to more easily embed it into a website or share it with friends or coworkers? Converting videos from one format to another can be cumbersome, and HandBrake is a free, open-source tool that helps users do so with ease. Visitors can download HandBrake for Mac, Linux, or Windows computers at the above website. Originally released in 2003, HandBrake has gone through a number of updates and was most recently updated and released as HandBrake 1.0.0 on December 24, 2016. [MMB]

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For those looking to improve their daily productivity and habits, there are a number of mobile apps that promise to help. Dashpop is a new iOS application that may appeal to those looking for an application that is part traditional "to-do" and part lifestyle motivator. Dashpop allows users to create a number of reminders throughout the day. These reminders may be tasks (e.g. turn in report by 4:00 PM) or reminders to drink water, clean, or practice a new language. Once users complete a task they can "pop" the task and eventually earn reward badges called balloons. Dashpop also allows users to track productivity in a number of tasks and areas and provides users with productivity tips. Dashpop is free for iOS devices and includes optional in-app purchases. [MMB]

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