The Scout Report -- Volume 24, Number 49

Educators in a wide variety of disciplines will find helpful teaching resources at Ethics Unwrapped, a program from the University of Texas at Austin's Center for Leadership and Ethics, part of the McCombs School of Business. Visitors to this project will find a rich, well-organized library of short educational videos created by the Ethics Unwrapped team that "emphasize the practical application of behavioral ethics to provide the next generation of leaders with the tools they need to act with integrity." A good place to start is the curated resources section, where visitors can choose among disciplinary groupings such as science, leadership, and behavioral ethics to find a collection of videos explaining relevant ethics concepts, each accompanied by discussion questions, case studies, teaching notes, and a bibliography of further resources. Readers may also enjoy exploring Ethics Unwrapped's other video series Scandals Illustrated, which currently offers 29 one-minute videos with teaching resources on recent events like the Equifax data breach. Ethics Unwrapped was created by program director Cara Biasucci. She is assisted by the program's producer Lazaro Hernandez, its coordinator Ian Ishak, and many others. [JDC]

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NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn may have ended in 2017, but its educational legacy lives on in numerous ways, including NASA's annual essay contest called Scientist for a Day. Both STEM and English teachers may be interested in assigning this essay contest to their students, which "challenges students in grades 5-12 to think like NASA scientists." For each year's contest, students research three specified locations in space, then based on their research decide which one would be the best for NASA to study further. For example, this year students are asked to learn about Saturn's moons Enceladus and Titan, as well as Jupiter's moon Europa and consider whether any of them could be habitable. As their contest entry, students write a 500-word essay explaining their choice. The winning essays - with one chosen for each topic in each grade group - will be posted on NASA's Solar System Exploration website (featured in the 6-18-2018 Scout Report), and US winners have the opportunity to participate in a video or teleconference with NASA scientists. Students outside the US may also be eligible to enter through their country's national coordinator. The deadline for the 2018-2019 contest is February 8, 2019. [JDC]

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The Lancet Countdown, an international research collaboration convened by the prestigious Lancet medical journals, is "an independent, global monitoring system dedicated to tracking the health dimensions of the impacts of, and the response to, climate change." The Lancet Countdown began publishing annual reports in 2016 and recently released their 2018 report, which draws on studies from multiple disciplines, such as climate scientists, social and political scientists, and public health professionals, and presents data for 2017 on 41 indicators across a range of themes. One of the key messages of their 2018 report is that the effects of climate change, including increased heat waves and vector-borne diseases, are already causing negative impacts on human health. The report also found that a "lack of progress in reducing emissions and building adaptive capacity ... [has] the potential to disrupt core public health infrastructure and overwhelm health services." Interested readers can access the full 36-page report with a free account. The Lancet Countdown's 2018 report was produced collaboratively between 27 universities, academic institutions, and intergovernmental agencies around the world, including the World Health Organization and the World Bank, with financial and technical support from the Wellcome Trust. [JDC]

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Celebrating Simms is an online companion to the permanent exhibition dedicated to the life and work of educator Lucy Simms and to the Lucy F. Simms School, which was named in her honor. Built shortly after Simm's death in 1934, the Lucy F. Simms School "served African-American students from all over Rockingham County [Virginia] and beyond between 1938 and 1965." This online exhibit emerged from a collaboration between Mollie Godfrey, a professor of English and Africana Studies at James Madison University (JMU); Sean McCarthy, also an English professor at JMU; and Robin Little, founder and president of the Shenandoah Valley Black Heritage Project. Together, Godfrey, McCarthy, and Little worked with a number of JMU students to research the history of the Lucy F. Simms School, as well as the broader history of African-American education in Harrisonburg, Virginia. At the center of this website is the Celebrating Simms exhibit, which includes a biography of Simms, a consideration of her legacy, and a number of related images and primary documents. In addition, visitors can explore an interactive timeline and map that documents the history of African-American Harrisonburg from the seventeenth century through the present. Celebrating Simms offers a valuable resource for history instructors, as well as anyone interested in the history of education and African-American history. [MMB]

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Both math and earth science educators may be interested in Explosion Math, a lesson plan provided by Science Friday's Educator Collaborative (featured in the 10-13-2017 Scout Report). In this standards-aligned lesson, which was written for middle and high school students, learners are challenged "to answer the age-old question of who would win between an Olympic sprinter, tortoise, car, you, and a volcano." Here, students use the slope-intercept form to calculate how much of a head start each subject would need to escape from two different volcanoes, Kilauea in Hawai'i and Fuego in Guatemala, both of which erupted in 2018. Along the way, students learn about (or review) the differences between shield and stratovolcanoes and their respective types of flows and reflect on the real-world implications of this scenario. This lesson is designed to take one to two hours to complete and includes multiple illustrative images and GIFs, as well as downloadable handouts and slides. Explosion Math was written by Brian Soash, Science Friday's Educator Community Leader and a former middle school math and science teacher. [JDC]

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Have you ever wondered about the life expectancy of various forms of digital media? The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) curates a list of digitally endangered species, which is reviewed on an annual basis and is made public via this website. The Bit List Jury, which is comprised of an "esteemed international panel of digital preservation experts," assesses digital materials and formats of concern and includes their findings in varying categories listed here. The most recent revision was completed in November 2018. The Bit List full report is available via a PDF from the Endangered Species page, but readers wishing for summarized content should check out the listed categories on the site. Risk classifications are broken down into lower risk (currently containing no digital materials), vulnerable (web-based social media platform posts), endangered (born-digital photos and video uploaded to social media or cloud services), critically endangered (born-digital materials stored on external or portable storage devices), and practically extinct (pre-WWW data and bulletin board services). There is also a category for digital materials of concern that the Bit List Jury will review in the future. Each risk classification category includes examples of the concerned digital media and reasoning for being concerned. For more detailed information about each of these risk classifications, readers should peruse the detailed Bit List report mentioned previously. Readers wishing to delve further into digital preservation (particularly if concerned about their organization's current digital preservation plan) should check out the Executive Guide to Digital Preservation, which is available via a separate tab on the DPC site. [JLB]

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Social scientists may be particularly interested in Being Black in the EU, a report from the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). Released in November 2018, this report "outlines selected results from FRA's second large-scale EU-wide survey on migrants and minorities ... [and] examines the experiences of almost 6,000 people of African descent in 12 EU Member States." Among this survey's results, it found that for significant proportions of people of African descent in the EU, experiences of racial harassment and violence were relatively common and that 41 percent of the respondents who have been stopped by the police in the five years prior to the survey experienced racial profiling. The survey findings also suggest that racial discrimination is behind unequal employment opportunities and access to adequate housing. Interested readers can download the full 80-page report as a PDF, which includes explanations of the study's methodology, terminology and legal framework, and numerous summary graphics. The FRA is a decentralized agency that "seeks to instill a fundamental rights culture across the EU" by collecting data and providing EU institutions and member states with expert advice on this topic. [JDC]

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Scientists at the Earlham Institute (EI) in the UK have been looking into microRNAs (miRNAs) and the role these "genetic orchestra conductors" may play in the evolution of gene regulation. Recently, their research has focused on the miRNAs of five domestic mammal species (cows, dogs, horses, pigs, and rabbits) and compared these species' miRNAs to a dataset of annotated miRNAs to identify which miRNAs had evolved more recently and are present in only a few species rather than across all mammals. The researchers found that many of the more recently evolved miRNAs "appear to be specific to either the cow or the dog" and that there may be "an involvement of these miRNAs in the domestication process." Here, those interested may read the scientific article resulting from EI's research, which was published in the open-access journal Scientific Reports in November 2018. EI (formerly known as the Genome Analysis Centre) is a life science research institute that uses "computational science and biotechnology to answer ambitious biological questions and generate enabling resources." This research was led by Luca Penso-Dolfin, a postdoctoral computational biologist in the Federica Di Palma Group at the Earlham Institute. [JDC]

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Wondering what book to read next or gift someone with? NPR's Book Concierge may be able to offer some inspiration. Now in its sixth year, this interactive guide offers readers a curated, highly visual selection of more than 300 books published in 2018 and "recommended by NPR hosts, critics, reporters, and producers." Designed by NPR Visuals to "be more Venn diagram-y than list-y," the Book Concierge allows visitors to filter the recommendations by multiple categories simultaneously. For example, selecting the two categories Biography & Memoir and Seriously Good Writing brings up such results as Split Tooth by Inuit musician Tanya Tagaq and In Pieces by award-winning actress Sally Field. By default, the Book Concierge displays its results as tiled book covers, but readers who prefer a simple list view may choose that option. Clicking a specific book leads to a brief, spoiler-free description from its recommender, as well as links to its reviews or coverage by NPR or member stations when applicable. Those interested in seeing NPR's book picks from previous years will find links to ten years' worth of recommendations in the left sidebar. [JDC]

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Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and coordinated by the University of Colorado and the University of Arizona, the goal of the Indigenous Foods Knowledges Network (IFKN) is to "develop a network comprised of Indigenous leaders, community practitioners, and scholars (both Indigenous and non-Indigenous) who are focused on research and community capacity related to food sovereignty and Indigenous Knowledge." IFKN is accomplishing this work in part through a series of meetings; the inaugural meeting was held in March 2018 at the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona. IFKN members, partner organizations, and the group's charter can be viewed on the website, in addition to a copy of the NSF-funded proposal that initiated the IFKN. Readers may also be interested in a section of the website entitled "Our Food and Knowledge Stories." Currently, there are about a half dozen stories, ranging from personal reflections to meeting reports to a short video, "The Resiliency of Hopi Agriculture: 2000 Years of Planting." [DS]

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In late November 2018, the United Nations released their latest Emissions Gap Report, an annual "assessment of current national mitigation efforts and the ambitions countries have presented in their Nationally Determined Contributions, which form the foundation of the Paris Agreement" on climate change. The "emissions gap" refers to the gap between the planet's likely emissions levels by 2030 based on our current trajectory compared to the levels necessary to meet the global warming targets laid out by the Paris Agreement. Here, readers can view an interactive summary of the report's major findings presented through a combination of text, photos, and graphics. In concise visual terms, this summary explains "What will happen to global greenhouse gas emissions if countries keep all of their climate promises? And what will happen if countries fall short?" It also shows which countries are on track to meet their targets and which are not, while noting that "[t]here is an enormous gap between what we need to do and what we're actually doing to prevent dangerous levels of climate change." Readers interested in learning the details of the 2018 Emissions Gap Report can follow the download link to access the full report as a PDF or an ebook, as well as multiple supplementary downloads. [JDC]

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Americans is a stunning digital exhibition created by the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian to accompany the museum's physical exhibition by the same name, which is currently on view in Washington, D.C. until 2022. Both the digital and physical exhibitions showcase how "American Indian images, names, and stories infuse American history and contemporary life." Visitors to the digital exhibition can explore an immense interactive gallery of advertising, memorabilia, and other images from American pop culture depicting representations of Native Americans. Clicking an image brings up a larger view, along with a brief annotation. Viewers will also find four stories integrated into the gallery: "The Invention of Thanksgiving," "Queen of America," "The Removal Act," and "The Indians Win." These stories provide a more in-depth look at historical figures and events, such as Pocahontas and the Battle of Little Bighorn, that have taken on lives of their own in American culture. Americans was co-curated by Comanche author and essayist Paul Chaat Smith and Cecile R. Ganteaume, author of the book Officially Indian: Symbols that Define the United States. [JDC]

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Readers with an interest in history and photography may especially enjoy River of Resilience, a series of story maps narrating the history of the Anacostia River, located in the mid-Atlantic United States near Washington, D.C. Presented in nine interactive chapters, this story map takes visitors on a visual journey through shifts in both landscape and time. It begins with an introductory overview before moving on to the spring-fed headwaters of the Anacostia River's northwest branch, which was once home to Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring. From there, River of Resilience travels downstream to the confluence of the Anacostia and the Potomac, visiting numerous people and places (both historical and contemporary) along the way. This resource features beautiful photography, video, and text by Krista Schlyer, an award-winning photographer and writer who is a Senior Fellow in the International League of Conservation Photographers. River of Resilience is an adaptation of Schlyer's book River of Redemption: Almanac of Life on the Anacostia, published in November 2018. [JDC]

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Founded in 2012 as an independent research and data collection group, the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) is a not for profit organization that "provide[s] online public access to accurate information about gun-related violence in the United States." Visitors to this resource will find data on various types of incidents occurring in the US in the past calendar year, such as defensive use and the number of injuries in 2018, as well as charts and maps showing their locations. The majority of the data GVA collects are updated and verified daily, and those interested can export the data as CSV files. Data for 2014-2017 is also available in the past years section. GVA's abundant data tables include links to each incident's annotation specifying its cause and other details, as well as links to GVA's sources for information on that incident, such as police blotters and media reports. Under Congressional reports, visitors can select a Congressional district and access 2018 data specific to that district. Readers may also be interested in the reports section, which features tabular "reports that are frequently requested," such as accidental injuries broken down by ages of the child/teen involved. [JDC]

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The sixteenth-century Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder is known for his intricate paintings, many depicting everyday peasant activities, some in a style inspired by that of Hieronymus Bosch. Bruegel's paintings continue to intrigue art historians and aficionados to this day, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna has recently provided a new resource for anyone interested in this Old Master. Launched in October 2018, Inside Bruegel is a digital portal through which visitors can examine in extreme detail twelve of Bruegel's paintings that conservators have painstakingly captured using multiple imaging methods. In addition to the visible light macrophotography showing the paintings as they are seen today, readers can also view them using infrared macrophotography and reflectography, as well as X-radiography. These additional methods allow viewers to look beyond the final images of the paintings and see elements such as the "underdrawings" Bruegel sketched before painting, which sometimes show startling details. For example, in The Battle Between Carnival and Lent, X-radiography revealed a corpse in a cart that had at some point been painted over. Available in both English and German, Inside Bruegel was created to accompany a rare exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum featuring all of Bruegel's extant works together. [JDC]

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KeePassXC is a cross-platform community driven password manager. It is based on the popular KeePass for Windows, but with a faster cadence of development and explicit support for non-Windows platforms. KeePassXC is highlighted as "an example of a password manager that is open-source and free" by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in their Surveillance Self-Defense project. It maintains an encrypted database of passwords that is locked by a master password. This database is stored on the user's computer rather than in some cloud-based storage system. Browser integration plugins are available for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Alternately, the built-in auto-type feature can be used to enter passwords into any application with a bit more configuration. Instructions on setting up browser integration and auto-type are available in the "Docs/FAQ" section of the website. Installers can be downloaded for Windows, macOS, and Linux computers. KeePassXC is free software, licensed under the GNU General Public License, with source code available on GitHub. [CRH]

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Cliqz is a privacy-oriented fork of Mozilla Firefox. It includes its own unique anti-tracking system, an integrated ad-blocker, anti-phishing measures, and an embedded search engine. In "Tracking the Trackers", a paper published in the Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on the World Wide Web, Cliqz engineers compared their anti-tracking system with Disconnect and Ad-Block Plus, concluding that their system was a measurable improvement. Cliqz uses its built-in search engine to provide suggestions in the address bar as users begin to type a query. This engine uses a local index of popular pages to provide results without sending search information to remote servers. As users browse pages, they are added to this local index so that they can later be found with a search. In addition to providing users with better privacy protections, this system for address bar completion is also faster than using an external service. Users may submit anonymous browsing data to improve the Cliqz default index by opting into their "Human Web" system. Cliqz installers are available for Windows and macOS desktops, as well as Android and iOS devices. Source code for the Cliqz browser and a number of their server-side services are available on GitHub under free software licenses. [CRH]

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Originally featured in the 1/26/2018 Scout Report, GayYA continues to be an impressive resource for anyone wanting to keep an eye out for inclusive books written for young adult audiences.

Librarians, educators, youth workers, and parents may be interested in GayYA: "a website and blog dedicated to everything LGBTQIA+ in YA [young adult literature]." This website was launched in 2011 and continues to be regularly updated by a team of dedicated volunteer book-lovers. Perhaps the most useful of these resources is the LGBTQA+ YA Master List, a collection of book recommendation lists organized by category, including gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender. From here, visitors may want to check out the latest blog post on the site's homepage or browse previous blog posts by category, which includes author interview, book review, teen voices, and sneak peek. This blog offers a fabulous way to discover new titles and stay up-to-date on news in the world of YA literature. Accessibly written, this blog may especially appeal to young readers themselves.

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