The Scout Report -- Volume 24, Number 37

In August 2018, the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (Georgetown Center) published a new report examining college students who work while enrolled. This report "explores the impact of hours worked, types of work, and completion rates by education level between low-income and higher-income working learners" and was written by Anthony P. Carnevale, Director of the Georgetown Center, and Nicole Smith, Chief Economist of the Georgetown Center. The researchers found that low-income students, who make up 43 percent of the working student body nationwide, tend to work more hours and have jobs unrelated to their studies and "as a result, are less likely than their higher-income peers to get good grades and attain bachelor's degrees or any credential at all." By contrast, higher-income working college students tend to work fewer hours and have better access to resume-building positions like internships while enrolled. Interested readers can download the full 40-page report or its 12-page executive summary as PDFs, and they can also view a PowerPoint presentation and a brief video summarizing the report. [JDC]

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Readers interested in British social history will find much to intrigue them in Intoxicants & Early Modernity: England, 1580-1740. This research project explores the significance of intoxicants such as tobacco (which was introduced to England in the 1570s) as well as alcohol, coffee, tea, and opium to "the economic, social, political, material, and cultural life of England between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries." Readers will find a well-organized site showcasing the project's five research themes, as well as links to publications that have come from this research. This project also features a link to their database (currently in beta), where readers may browse or search through the project's myriad sources, such as port books and depositions, and also explore information on relevant people, places, and nearly two hundred different intoxicants. Begun in 2013, Intoxicants & Early Modernity is a collaboration between the University of Sheffield and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Phil Withington, Professor of Social and Cultural History at the University of Sheffield, is the project's principal investigator. [JDC]

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On September 5, 2018, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate published their comprehensive 2018 report from The New Climate Economy, the commission's flagship project. The major finding of the analysis for this report is that "bold action [on climate change] could yield a direct economic gain of US$26 trillion through to 2030 compared with business-as-usual. And this is likely to be a conservative estimate." Visitors to this report will find an interactive and accessible presentation of its highlights and details, including a "map of action" showcasing a regional perspective on economic and climate factors, a "new growth agenda [...] highlight[ing] opportunities in five key economic areas," and detailed analyses, trends, and recommendations for each of those five areas. Interested readers may also download the full 200-page report in PDF format. The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate is an international initiative whose membership "comprises former heads of government and finance ministers and leaders in the fields of economics and business," such as Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, the former president of Mexico, and Kristalina Georgieva, CEO of the World Bank. [JDC]

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Those interested in visual culture may appreciate Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies. Founded in 2010 at the University of Alberta, Imaginations is a peer-reviewed journal whose mission is to "bridge communities of artistic visual practice and academic scholarship [and to] create a knowledge democracy venue for the image." Each issue of Imaginations is centered around a theme. The most recent issue focused on "Marshall McLuhan and the Arts," while an upcoming issue theme is "The Mise-en-scene of a Decade: Visualizing the 70s." Authors are encouraged to include high-quality digital media as part of their articles. Under "elicitations," readers will find the reviews portion of this journal, which is published on a rolling basis and offers thoughts on art exhibits, books, and "social and political movements of interest to the visual cultural studies community." Imaginations is published twice yearly in both English and French and its editor-in-chief is Markus Reisenleitner, Professor of Humanities at York University in Toronto. [JDC]

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Current and future scientists and engineers looking to hone their communication skills may be interested in Share Your Science: Blogging for Magazines, Newspapers, and More. Launched in 2017, Share Your Science is a free five-part recorded webinar series created by the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University and Scientific American. The sessions are approximately one hour in length and are led by science communication experts, such as Mariette DiChristina (Editor-in-Chief of Scientific American and Nature) and Ben Lillie (co-founder of The Story Collider). Topics include connecting with your audience, storytelling, and how to use current events to draw readers into your science story. The need for scientists to be able to communicate about their work with lay audiences is becoming increasingly apparent, and Share Your Science offers valuable strategies to help fill this need. [JDC]

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From the Broadway Teaching Group comes this extensive collection of free lesson plans, theatre games, and exercises. Organized alphabetically by title, these lesson plans cover a wide range of activities, such as a demonstration of how "Individual Experiences Influence Performances," an exercise on creating a soundscape, a stage directions game modeled after Simon Says, and a musical improv exercise. Many are geared towards actors, but there are also activities aimed at developing learners' writing and design skills, as well as activities exercising the imagination that could also be fun in non-theatrical contexts. Available as PDFs, each lesson includes the intended age ranges (as young as elementary age up through adults), a brief description of its purpose, and a list of materials needed, as well as instructions for the full exercise. Broadway Teaching Group was co-founded by director and writer Gordon Greenberg and producer Pam Pariseau, both of whom have acclaimed theatre careers on Broadway and internationally. [JDC]

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History and literature educators may appreciate this collection of innovative lesson plans from the History Teaching Institute and the Historic Costume & Textiles Collection at The Ohio State University. Here, readers will find nine detailed lesson plans that each use clothing as a vehicle for exploring a different aspect of history. For example, in "A Shirtwaist Disaster!" students learn to use artifacts and primary and secondary sources to explore the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, then use what they learned to write an argumentative, narrative, or informative essay. In another lesson plan, "The Space Race and the Impact on Society," students compare primary sources about the space race to Ray Bradbury's short story "Dark They Were and Golden-Eyed" and explore how history influences fiction. Designed to correspond with Common Core standards, these lesson plans are generally intended for middle school students, and several are designed to encompass multi-day projects or assignments. [JDC]

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Kunene Conservation Research offers readers a window into an ongoing field-based research project on human-lion interactions in the Kunene region of northwest Namibia. Readers unfamiliar with this region may want to begin by reading through the about and history portions of the site, which give useful context. This resource documents the research of John Heydinger, a PhD candidate at the University of Minnesota and Macquarie University, who studies "historical and contemporary issues in rural development and wildlife conservation." Launched in June 2017 and regularly updated, readers will find an array of updates on Heydinger's research, such as reports on site visits, stakeholder meetings, and workshops, as well as photographs and occasional local news articles relevant to this project. This research is being conducted in partnership with Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation (a Namibian NGO) and the University of Minnesota Lion Center, with support from the Big History Institute at Macquarie University. [JDC]

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New York University's Development Research Institute (DRI) has created this fascinating "interactive documentary" where viewers can explore four centuries of development history on one block of Greene Street in what is known today as New York City's Soho neighborhood. Here, readers will find a richly detailed multimedia presentation guiding viewers through Greene Street's incredibly varied history while incorporating video, sound, historic maps, and high-quality images. After experiencing Greene Street's journey from undeveloped forest to today's designer retail shops and luxury residences (with stops as farmland, a red-light district, a cluster of factories, a Depression-era slum, and an artists' enclave along the way), readers can also view the maps and data separately and download the working paper produced by this research. It should be noted that Greene Street is designed for a full computer screen and is not mobile-friendly. The navigation of this resource may not be immediately intuitive due to its horizontal orientation, but the site signposts its navigation tools well, and the unusual layout complements its timeline structure. This resource was created by William Easterly, Professor of Economics at NYU and Co-Director of DRI, as well as Laura Freschi and Steven Pennings at DRI. [JDC]

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From the Library of Congress (LOC) comes Behind Barbed Wire, a story map featuring the LOC's collection of newspapers that were produced by Japanese-Americans who were relocated to internment camps during World War Two. This digital exhibit also uses maps and numerous photos by Ansel Adams to show where the internment camps were located and to tell the story of everyday life in the camps. Here, readers will learn about how camp newspapers functioned in their communities, keeping camp residents informed, documenting their communities' day-to-day activities, and helping to provide a sense of normalcy in their uprooted existence. In addition to news articles, these newspapers covered camp sports events, informed residents of church services and social events, and even published cartoons and comic strips. Behind Barbed Wire also offers links to other resources about the internment camps, including the LOC's full digital collection of camp newspapers and a teacher's guide about the internment. [JDC]

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Readers who are curious about what really goes on in the world of scientific research may want to check out Undiscovered, a podcast produced by the Science Friday initiative. Hosted and produced by Annie Minoff and Elah Feder, this podcast tells stories of "the left turns, missteps, and lucky breaks that make science happen," bringing listeners into the often weird backstories of science. For example, in the episode "Six Degrees," mathematicians Duncan Watts and Steven Strogatz set out to discover the truth behind the phrase "six degrees of separation" and unexpectedly started a whole new field of science in the process. Each episode's page includes show notes with an episode summary, photos, links to relevant resources, and a full transcript. Launched in 2017, Undiscovered just announced the start of their second season, and their full first season is available to stream and download via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other platforms. [JDC]

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From FlowingData (featured in the 1-22-2016 Scout Report) comes "What Makes People the Most Happy," published in June 2018. Here, statistician Nathan Yau analyzes "a corpus of 100,000 happy moments" created when researchers at MIT, the University of Tokyo, and Recruit Institute of Technology asked 10,000 people to each list 10 happy moments. Yau used natural language processing to break the responses down into basic subject-verb-object components, then examines these for patterns. The results showed that while most of the happy moments featured the self as the main subject (e.g. "I got a new car"), many happy moments stemmed from others (e.g. "My husband made dinner for our family") or were felt on behalf of others (e.g. "My best friend got his old job back"). Yau's lighthearted textual analysis includes visual representations of the different categories under consideration, as well as notes on how he analyzed this dataset and links to related FlowingData articles. [JDC]

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The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center has created an excellent resource in their database Native Plants of North America. Visitors can search for plants by either their common or scientific names, and the advanced search feature allows searches by combinations of fields such as light requirements, size, and bloom characteristics. This resource also features numerous helpful plant lists; for example, "Bee-friendly Plants" and "Plants for Drought," as well as lists of recommended native plants for nearly every US state and Canadian province. The listings for individual plant species include an image gallery and provide information, such as its scientific name and USDA classification, as well as helpful information for gardeners, for instance, its preferred growing conditions and maintenance tips. Each species listing also contains extensive information on the various benefits that plant offers, like whether it is resistant to deer and if it is of special value to beneficial insects (e.g. native bee species). Those interested in gardening with native flowers would do well to pay this resource a visit. [JDC]

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In keeping with their focus on scientific topics, such as developments in mathematics and theoretical physics, Quanta Magazine recently kicked off their second season of In Theory, a video series that aims to "demonstrate complex ideas in science and math in a clear, quirky and aesthetically pleasing style." The newest installment of this series, created by Emily Driscoll of BonSci Films, examines the concept of universality, "a phenomenon that reveals underlying mathematical connections in the world." In this animated video, this mathematical concept is explored through unexpected phenomena, such as a bus system in Mexico and patterns in chickens' eyes. Currently, there are ten videos available in this series, most of which are under five minutes long. In Theory is produced by Michelle Yun, and its first season was hosted by theoretical particle physicist David Kaplan. [JDC]

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Since its new building opened in 2005, Duke University's Nasher Museum of Art (formerly known as the Duke University Museum of Art) has welcomed more than one million visitors through its doors. For those outside the Durham area, the Nasher Museum also has a sizable digital database where readers can explore more than 6,000 items in the museum's holdings. Here, readers can browse collections, such as "Art of the Americas" with over 1,700 objects from "nearly every culture of pre-Columbian Latin America," more than 800 examples from their photography collection, and over 400 antiquities from Greece, Rome, Egypt, and Etruria. Visitors can also browse the database by categories or people via the menu on the left, and the database is searchable by either objects or people with a variety of subfields. Those doing research can create a free login to be able to save their own groups of items as either public or private collections. [JDC]

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Founded by Eliza Gregory, Mark Strandquist, and Gemma-Rose Turnbull, Photography as a Social Practice "serves as an archive of research and conversations around photography as a social practice." Materials on the site include links to and coverage of allied projects, interviews with practitioners, and original writing on contemporary photography through the lenses of ethics, representation, power dynamics, and social justice. An example of a project is Let Us Eat Cake, showcasing collaborative work by artist Anthony Luvera and a group of seven LGBTQ+ people documenting queer communities in Northern Ireland. In the interviews section, there's a recent conversation with Dutch photographer Ben Krewickel, whose 2013 book A Possible Life, tells the story of an undocumented immigrant. Finally, the resources section of the site provides listings of events, degree programs, grants, and fellowships, along with reading lists, quotes, and questions. [DS]

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Wire is a secure collaboration platform that supports instant messaging, file sharing, voice calls, and video conferences. Users can switch among Wire's different communication modes (IM to video conference, for example) with a single click, without needing to change programs. Wire supports "encrypted guest rooms" for communication with external clients and partners. Guests are sent an invitation link which they can click to join the chat from their browser with no requirement to register or download anything. The Wire site shows an example where this feature is used for an electronic interview. Source code for both the Wire server and clients are available on GitHub. Wire's open approach to security has enabled a number of independent third-party audits of their code, with improvements resulting from those audits integrated into the software. Wire can be accessed over the web using any modern browser, with a desktop application for Windows, macOS, or Linux, and with mobile clients for iOS and Android. Wire is free for personal use and available for business use for a monthly fee, with discounts available for non-profit and educational institutions. [CRH]

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Etherpad is a web-based real-time collaborative editor. Any user can create a collaborative document, called a "pad," each of which has a distinct URL. Anyone that has this URL can make edits to the pad, with every editor's changes appearing in their own color. Etherpad automatically saves changes periodically, but users may also checkpoint specific versions at any time. The editing history of each pad is also saved, with a slider allowing users to rewind a document to view previous versions. Pads can be downloaded in plain text, HTML, PDF, ODF, or Word format. A number of free, public Etherpad servers are available. These can be located in the "List of public instances" on the Etherpad site. For users that wish to self-host an Etherpad instance, server installers are provided on the Etherpad site for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Etherpad is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license, with source code available on GitHub. [CRH]

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Last featured in the 2-12-2016 Scout Report, the Colored Conventions Project has continued to add new material. Recent additions include several new exhibitions, an academic journal article by David A. Joens entitled "Illinois Colored Conventions of the 1880s," and an excerpt from the Cincinnati Convention Proceedings of 1858.

This fascinating project from scholars, students, librarians, and researchers at the University of Delaware chronicles the efforts of African Americans in the years before and after the Civil War, as they convened to discuss justice in education, work, and law at what were called "Colored Conventions." Readers may like to begin with the conventions tab to explore the primary documents at the heart of the collection: convention minutes beginning in 1830 and continuing all the way through 1888. These documents, which are still in the process of being preserved and are therefore not quite complete, have been diligently digitized, transcribed, and cataloged. For instance, readers will find that the minutes from September 24, 1883, feature an address from Frederick Douglass, while the minutes from 1830 include ideas for establishing a settlement for Black Americans in Canada. In addition to the documents featured here, the exhibits section is well worth a visit, offering details on several online exhibitions that have drawn upon the Colored Conventions Project's collection. These include "A Brief Introduction to the Colored Conventions Movement, 1830-1890s," and "Black Wealth and the 1843 National Colored Convention."

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