The Scout Report -- Volume 25, Number 24

The History Project (THP) is a nonprofit organization that describes itself as "the only organization focused exclusively on documenting and preserving the history of New England's LGBTQ communities and sharing that history with LGBTQ individuals, organizations, allies, and the public." Visitors to THP's website may like to begin by checking out the organization's projects that, as of this write-up, include an interactive story map highlighting significant locations in Boston's queer history, created to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising in 1969. THP also maintains a large archive of "more than 150 collections from organizations and individuals encompassing more than one million documents," artifacts, and multimedia relating to New England LGBTQ history, some of which have been digitized and made viewable online. Additionally, readers can explore digital versions of several exhibitions created by THP to examine various aspects of LGBTQ history in the Boston area, such as The Queer East, which celebrates the region's Asian queer community, and Public Faces/Private Lives, "which chronicles Boston's LGBTQ history from 1620 up to the Stonewall rebellion." THP is run entirely by volunteers, and its board of directors includes professional archivists, historians, and communication experts. [JDC]

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STEM teachers and students (as well as anyone who enjoys learning about science but dislikes reading traditional journal articles) may be interested in Frontiers for Young Minds. This innovative resource publishes open-access articles written by scientific experts and reviewed by a panel of kids between the ages of 8 and 15 who provide feedback for the author with the help of a science mentor. The resulting articles are accurate, easy to understand, and crafted to be as interesting as possible. As of this write-up, Frontiers for Young Minds publishes content that showcases new discoveries and core scientific concepts in six subject areas: astronomy, biodiversity, earth science, health, mathematics, and neuroscience. Each subject area has its own editorial boards and a team of science mentors. For those interested in participating in this project, information is provided for each of the possible roles, including downloadable guidelines for both authors and reviewers. So far, more than 500 authors, about 1,300 young reviewers, and over 300 science mentors have been part of Frontiers for Young Minds. [JDC]

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Molly of Denali is a new podcast perfect for children looking for an adventure. The show features Molly Mabray, a native Alaskan girl, "who lives with her family in [the fictional] Qyah, Alaska, where she helps her mom and dad run the Denali Trading Post, a general store, bunkhouse, and transport hub." All characters in Molly feature stories rooted in Native storytelling and are primarily voiced by Indigenous Alaskan actors. The first episode (launched on May 30, 2019) is entitled "The Birthday Cake Thief" and features Molly and her family on a mission to solve who stole her birthday cake out of Molly's mother's plane after it landed at the trading post. Molly launches her own mystery adventure surrounding this event with the help of her friend Tooey and an enigmatic raven, and ultimately discovers "something way better than a piece of cake." The series will be comprised of eight episodes, each of which run about 15 minutes in length. The podcast will serve as a prequel to the TV show of the same name set to launch on PBS on July 15, 2019. [JLB]

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In April 2019, the government of Canada released its first major report in an ongoing national assessment that was led by Natural Resources Canada. The report focuses on the impacts of climate change in Canada and how the country is adapting to them. Here, visitors will find the interactive digital version of this assessment's first report, which explains what changes to Canada's climate have already been observed, what caused those changes, and what further changes are projected for the future. After the introductory chapter and an executive summary, the report begins by situating climate change in a global context before going into detail on the observed changes for the different major components of Canada's climate system, including changes in temperature, precipitation, the cryosphere, the water cycle, and the oceans. The final chapter provides a summary of the changes in Canada as a whole, as well as more detailed syntheses of the preceding chapters for each of Canada's six major geographical regions. This interactive report is available in both English and French, and those interested can also download it as a PDF, either as individual chapters or as a single 444-page document. [JDC]

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Produced by PBS Digital Studios and hosted by Sarah Urist Green, the Art Assignment YouTube channel explores "art and art history through the lens of things happening today." Most videos are around 10-15 minutes long and would be a useful resource for various discussion settings and even in the classroom. Recent episodes explore timely topics such as art about migration and the debate regarding public funding for the arts. The Art Assignment's videos are organized into playlists. One such playlist, Art Cooking, includes the episodes "Art Cooking: Dutch and Flemish Still Life Painting" and "Art Cooking: Georgia O'Keefe." In the latter episode, Green tries out recipes from two cookbooks: Margaret Wood's A Painter's Kitchen and Robyn Lea's Dinner with Georgia O'Keefe. Other playlists include The Case For, which features videos that argue the case for various forms of art, and Better Know, which features videos that explore the history of well-known works of art. The channel also features some 60 contributed assignments from guest artists and curators, including Sonya Clark, Alec Soth, and Allison Smith. And since the Art Assignment has been online for a few years, it's also possible to see responses to the assignments, such as "The Muster Highlights" responses to Allison Smith's assignment, where the prompt was to declare what you are fighting for and design a uniform for the cause. [DS]

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For more than thirty years, the Peabody award-winning radio show and digital magazine Afropop Worldwide has educated and entertained audiences with content "dedicated to music from Africa and the African diaspora." Its internationally syndicated, weekly radio show (available on well over 100 stations worldwide) is hosted by Georges Collinet, a seasoned broadcaster with more than 50 years of experience who grew up in Cameroon. In addition to its radio broadcasts, Afropop is also available as a podcast via iTunes, Soundcloud, and Stitcher. Visitors to the Afropop website can explore their numerous audio episodes by artist name, country, and musical genre, with episodes available from the present to as far back as 2003. The site is also frequently updated with articles covering a range of topics, such as reviews of albums and performances, interviews with musicians, photo essays, and more. Afropop Worldwide is produced by the New York-based nonprofit World Music Productions, and it has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. For readers with any level of interest in African music and culture, this resource is well worth a visit. [JDC]

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Have you ever heard a song while watching a television show or playing a game and wondered what it was? Readers with this experience may find Tunefind to be a helpful resource. Founded in 2005, Tunefind offers visitors a searchable, user-driven catalog of music featured in television, movies, and video games. In addition to using Tunefind's search bar to locate a title or music artist, visitors can also browse the site by TV show, movie, game, or trending music. Tunefind's homepage showcases recently released media, and TV shows are organized by season and episode. When a song is available to stream or purchase online, links to services such as iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, or YouTube are provided. Song listings in Tunefind's database are sourced in several ways, including official lists released by the show, music supervisors who select music for productions, and user submissions verified by the Tunefind community. Readers may join the community to help identify songs, add other information to the database, and ask questions by creating a free account. As of this write-up, Tunefind has cataloged more than 180,000 songs from over 80,000 TV episodes and movies. [JDC]

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Launched in 2016, Musicmap is a fascinating interactive visualization of music history that "attempts to provide the ultimate genealogy of popular music genres," including the relationships and influences between genres. Visitors to Musicmap will find a colorful infographic designed to resemble a city skyline, with each "building" color-coded and labeled as a different musical "super-genre." Clicking a building brings up a synopsis of its genre with a list of subgenres at the bottom; for example, the Country block leads to subgenres ranging from Classic Country/Hillbilly to Nashville/Countrypolitan to Americana/Alternative Country. Users can then click a subgenre to read a short description and find a playlist of examples linked to embedded YouTube videos. Returning to the main map, visitors can also zoom in to see an intricate genealogy of the connections between subgenres, denoted by solid and dotted white lines. In addition, Musicmap includes a helpful menu on the left side, containing detailed information about its background and intentions, explanatory guides, and a glossary of musical terms. Musicmap is the brainchild and passion project of music enthusiast Kwinten Crauwels, who by day is an architect in Belgium, with the assistance of his brother Dries Crauwels, a web developer. [JDC]

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New York City's Carnegie Hall is well-known as one of the world's premier music performance venues. In addition to its prestigious concerts (whose history we highlighted in the 7-07-2017 Scout Report), Carnegie Hall offers a number of educational programs through its Weill Music Institute. While most of their programs are located in New York City, music teachers anywhere can take advantage of their Music Educators Toolbox. This toolbox features dozens of "free online resources for music teachers [and] includes lesson plans and activities, summative and formative assessments, video examples, and documented best practices." Organized by grade level, the toolbox provides standards-aligned resources for K-5 students that are "[d]esigned to be effective and adaptable in a wide variety of music classrooms," beginning with concepts such as rhythmic patterns in kindergarten and addressing more advanced topics like improvisation and tempo in later grades. Lesson plans frequently include downloadable worksheets, audio files to stream or download, and videos. The educational resources in this toolbox were developed through Carnegie Hall's five-year residency in and partnership with PS/MS 161, an elementary/middle school in upper Manhattan. [JDC]

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Music historians and readers who appreciate the novels of Jane Austen may be interested in this digitized collection of sheet music owned by the writer and her family. Here, visitors will find more than twenty "printed and manuscript music books owned by members of the Austen family" dating from "the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries." Most of these books were created by compiling and binding together "separate manuscript or printed sheet music items." Other books contain sheet music that was hand-copied into personal albums, some of which were owned and copied by Jane Austen herself. In total, this collection comprises almost 600 songs and other musical pieces written for the keyboard or harp, and it includes pieces by both British composers and by international musicians. Today, this remarkable collection is part of the Hartley Library's archives at the University of Southampton. It was digitized and made available via the Internet Archive in November 2015. [JDC]

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We originally featured this resource in the 10-13-2017 Scout Report. Since then it has added several new components, including Early Music Sources PIE ("Please in English"), which "aims to take sources that were never translated, and in some cases never published, and publish them online for free, in English."

Founded in 2014 by music scholar and composer Elam Rotem and musician and musicologist Joerg-Andreas Boetticher, Early Music Sources is designed to "simplify the access to the vast amount of online early music sources." As of this write-up, this resource contains two databases and a YouTube channel. The databases allow visitors to explore over 1,500 articles, books, and manuscripts published between the 15th and 20th centuries. Visitors can conduct a text search of these items or browse by category, such as Basso Continuo-English; keyboard instruments; or tuning and temperament. Many of these materials have been digitized and can be accessed for free. Meanwhile, the Iconography Database, which "focuses on depictions of music-making that may record aspects of contemporaneous performance practice," features 152 fascinating works of art, which visitors are invited to browse by Century, Instrument, or Category. Finally, visitors won't want to miss the site's delightful YouTube channel, which offers accessible and engaging educational videos about a variety of topics related to the early music movement.

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