The Scout Report -- Volume 25, Number 45

Readers who have been following the recent news reports about this year's wildfires in California may be interested in this interactive map from the Sacramento-based Capital Public Radio. Published in January 2019, this map displays in one place "the perimeters of more than 100 years of California wildfires recorded by Cal Fire and the U.S. Geological Survey," including fires that occurred as early as 1878 and as recently as 2018. Upon visitors' first arrival, the map shows the locations of all its wildfires simultaneously. A slider allows visitors to view the fires for an individual year (available from 1951 to 2018), but all fires from 1878 to 1950 are shown together since the data for these years is incomplete. Users can zoom in and out of the map to view a particular area in greater detail, and clicking on a specific fire will show its name and the year it started. This map was created by Emily Zentner and Chris Hagan, who are respectively the Interactive Producer and the Senior Editor of Digital Content for Capital Public Radio. [JDC]

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In September 2019, the Pew Research Center released this report examining trends among the experiences of American military veterans, comparing veterans whose service began after 9/11 to those whose service ended prior to 9/11. The report looked at a variety of aspects of the veteran experience, including deployment and combat trends, how well veterans feel their training prepared them for military service and civilian life, and how both veterans and the general public view those who have served in the military. In addition to similarities, the study found several disparities between pre- and post-9/11 generations of veterans. For example, those who served after 9/11 were significantly more likely to be deployed and see combat than those who served prior to 9/11. Interested readers can view and download the full 38-page report at the link above, where they will also find multiple colorful graphs and the topline survey results. This report was authored by Kim Parker, Ruth Igielnik, Amanda Barroso, and Anthony Cilluffo. It is based on two surveys of US adults, with one survey consisting of 1,284 US military veterans and the other consisting of 1,084 US non-veterans. These surveys were conducted between May 14 and June 3, 2019. [JDC]

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Physics teachers and students may want to explore the Physics Aviary, a free resource created by Frank McCulley, a physics teacher at Delsea Regional High School in New Jersey. Launched in 2013, the Physics Aviary offers a wide array of cross-platform teaching and learning aids, including labs, simulation tools, games, and homework problems. To help fellow teachers more easily identify which aids may be most relevant to them, McCulley has also created resource outlines that follow the curricula he uses for his AP Physics 1, AP Physics 2, and Honors Physics courses and that link to the Physics Aviary programs that align with the different topics for each course. The site's Search form allows for both simple keyword searches as well as more narrow searches by fields like unit and program type. Repeat visitors may want to begin by checking out the New page to see what has been most recently added or revised. Given the sheer quantity of resources available here, the Physics Aviary is well worth bookmarking and visiting multiple times. [JDC]

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Readers from virtually all backgrounds and life stages can pick up helpful tips from Life Kit, a unique podcast series from National Public Radio (NPR) that describes itself as a "family of audio guides for navigating your life -- everything from your finances to sleep to exercise to raising your kids." Since its launch in December 2018, Life Kit has created guides on 16 different topics (as of this write-up) that are organized into themes such as Money, Health, and Parenting. Each guide includes several episodes that take listeners through basic as well as more complex questions on that topic. For example, the guide on How to Make Friends opens with an episode on the need to "accept the awkwardness" of making friends in general, while subsequent episodes discuss how to cope with friendships that have changed (or ended) and how the culture of masculinity is "making it hard for [men] to maintain friendships." Episodes are typically about 20-25 minutes long, and readers can subscribe to an individual topic (e.g. Parenting: Difficult Conversations), to all guides within a theme (e.g. all Parenting episodes), or to the entire Life Kit series via their favorite podcast platform. [JDC]

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Readers with an interest in ethnobotany and local wild food knowledge may want to check out the 1000 Leaf Project, a citizen science project based in Armenia with the aim to catalog the edible wild plants and mushrooms that Armenian people have used throughout history and still use today. The site is written in both Cyrillic Armenian and English. There are four main sections: the Plants and Mushrooms database, Recipes, Sustainable Harvesting, and Additional Resources. Interested citizen scientists can access an online form to suggest information for any of these sections from the Submit button. The Recipes section is divided into the following subsections: Meals, Drinks, Preserves, and Personal Care. Examples of recipes include: nettle milk soup, chamomile tea, red currant jam, and a pomegranate face mask. Database entries may include links to recipes and stories, information on best times to harvest the plant, where it grows, and often images of the plant. Not all entries are complete, as information is still being collected. The 1000 Leaf Project is a joint effort between the Earth Island Institute's Armenian Environmental Network and the American University of Armenia's Acopian Center for the Environment. [DS]

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Readers interested in Native American cultures, particularly tribes in the Pacific Northwest, should pay the Plateau People's Web Portal a visit. This project is a collaboration between eight different tribes, including the Schitsu'umsh (Coeur d'Alene), the Umatilla, and the Yakama. Here, readers will find "a gateway to Plateau peoples' cultural materials held in multiple repositories," such as the Northwest Museum of Art and Culture and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian. What makes this project unique is that the digital materials visitors will find here are curated, annotated, and managed by tribal representatives in accordance with each tribes' specific cultural protocols. This rich, multifaceted collection contains hundreds of images as well as historical documents and audio and video recordings. Visitors can Browse these materials by tribe, category, or collection, and they can also filter the results by multiple fields. The Plateau People's Web Portal is built on the Mukurtu platform (see the 4-26-2019 Scout Report) and is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council for Learned Societies, among others. [JDC]

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With LA's rich diversity at its core, the Mapping Indigenous Los Angeles project from the University of California Los Angeles is creating a series of story maps that bring together a variety of stakeholders to help highlight "multiple layers" of diversity and identity. At the heart of the site are the story maps themselves, which unfold to reveal the complex history of place and the Indigenous peoples who have helped shape and been shaped by them. The story maps vary in length and depth, but all feature a variety of text, photos, podcasts, and other materials that help viewers immerse themselves in the subject matter and deepen their understanding. Accompanying materials include curriculum and educational resources related to telling Indigenous stories approved for both primary and secondary students. The site also features a Further Reading bibliography (accessible under Resources) for those interested in exploring the literature base. Continuing to build and expand the site, Mapping Indigenous LA's research team plans to "include more original inhabitants of Southern California and relocated American Indians, the Latin American Indigenous diaspora, and Pacific Islander communities, who have made Los Angeles their home." [REB]

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This collaborative project created by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and the National Association of Friendship Centres provides a medium of expression for Canadian Indigenous youth as they share their vision of human rights. The museum's primary mission is to explore the subject of human rights, with a particular focus on Canada. As the world's first museum dedicated to the subject, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights is the perfect home for this set of 13 spirit panels created by Elders in collaboration with artists and First Nations, Metis, and Inuit youth. Through a series of sharing circles, Elders encouraged dialogue with the youth to elicit their thoughts and ideas about human rights. Youths engaged in hands-on activities with artists to explore visual metaphors and creative interpretations, which were used by those artists to create the spirt panels. Each panel entry on the website (accessible under Explore) includes images of the artwork (users can zoom in to see more detail), photos of the individuals involved in creating that panel, and video clips that explore what human rights mean to the participants. Jordan Molaro, an Aboriginal filmmaker, documented the project and created the videos from each community. The website is also available in French. [REB]

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There are approximately 7,000 languages spoken around the globe, and more than 4,000 of them are part of Indigenous cultures. According to the United Nations, 2,680 of those Indigenous languages are at risk of disappearing. Readers who would like to hear some of these languages may enjoy Celebrating Indigenous Languages, a new interactive project from Google Earth. Launched in August 2019, this project features audio recordings of more than 50 different Indigenous languages from around the world. For each language, visitors can listen to a traditional greeting and two other examples of the language (e.g. common phrases or songs). For instance, Lori Laiwa Thomas in California shared a traditional song for women dancers and the word for "mother" in the Central Pomo language, while Dr. Solange Pawou Molu from Cameroon shared her favorite proverb and a lullaby in Bamum, her native language. In addition to the recordings, each language also includes a photo of the speaker and a short paragraph about the language. Users can browse through the languages by choosing a pin on the globe or using the arrows in the sidebar. Celebrating Indigenous Languages can be explored online and also downloaded as a Google Earth KMZ file. Users will have the best results with a Google Chrome browser. [JDC]

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Numerous museums and collections contain artifacts, cultural objects, and human remains that were taken from Indigenous peoples without their consent. Repatriation efforts to return these culturally important objects and remains to their communities have only relatively recently begun gaining traction among the general public. Return, Reconcile, Renew (RRR) is one such effort whose website and digital archive, which launched in September 2019, aim "to increase understanding about repatriation and to help those who wish to locate their Ancestors' remains and bring them home." Based in Melbourne, this resource focuses primarily on the Indigenous peoples of Australia, such as the Ngarrindjeri, the Torres Strait Islanders, and the Aboriginal groups of the Kimberley region. A good place for visitors to start is by exploring the Archive, where they will find a wealth of information organized into categories such as Digital Objects, Indigenous Peoples, Explainers, and Published Resources. The RRR website is the latest development of the international project by the same name that began in 2013, whose partner organizations include research institutions in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, as well as community organizations led by Indigenous groups in Australia. [JDC]

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Tinkercad is a free, web-based 3D modeling system that strives "to make 3-D design in general, and the design of physical items in particular, accessible to hundreds of millions of people." In service of that goal, Tinkercad has a very simple, intuitive, and easy to learn interface. The 3E modeling system is frequently used to teach entry-level constructive solid geometry. Objects created in Tinkercad can be exported to Minecraft and to formats used by 3D printers. In the Tinkercad Gallery linked at the top of the site, users can locate a library of objects created and shared by other users. Many of these objects are available under a Creative Commons license that allows them to be freely reused and incorporated into other projects. Tinkercad runs in any browser that supports WebGL, which includes all the major desktop browsers (Chrome, Firefox, IE/Edge, and Safari) as well as most mobile browsers. [CRH]

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Radian is an enhanced interactive console for the GNU R statistical computing system. It provides rich syntax highlighting, multi-line editing, and auto-completion similarly to Python's IPython or Ruby's IRB. Radian may be a good middle ground for users that find vanilla R to be a bit too spartan but RStudio to be a bit too heavyweight. The Settings section provides an overview of the customizations supported by Radian. These include a number of color schemes for syntax highlighting, Emacs or vi key bindings, optional auto-indentation of code as it is entered, and a variety of options for customizing Radian's prompt. The Installation section lists requirements and provides setup instructions. Radian can be installed on Windows, macOS, and Linux systems. Radian is distributed under the MIT license, with source code available on GitHub. [CRH]

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Originally featured in the 6-16-2017 Scout Report, educators and interested readers can still take advantage of this resource's offerings. Highlights include: more than a dozen lesson plan ideas and extensive bibliographies of relevant books, articles, and films.

K-12 English and social studies instructors will find a variety of resources for teaching Indigenous literature, culture, and history on this website. This online resource was created in 2015 as part of a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute for educators, headed by Native American Studies scholar Kathryn W. Shanley and Curriculum and Instruction scholar Phyllis Bo-yuen Ngai. During the Summer Institute, participating K-12 educators had the opportunity to hear from a number of experts in Native American studies before using their own expertise in K-12 instruction to craft a number of unit plans and other classroom resources. Visitors to this site will find these lesson plans via the Teacher Authors section on the right panel of the homepage. Each resource is accompanied by a short biography of the teacher who created it as well as their current classroom. In addition, educators can check out a list of all resources used into this institute via the Institute Materials section.

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