The Scout Report -- Volume 22, Number 9

In the TV documentary series, Keeping Score, master conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony delved into the lives and works of eight major composers. The effort has been preserved on the Keeping Score in the Classroom website, where educators will find much to appreciate in the Lesson Plan Library. Here readers can scout 171 distinct lesson plans, running the gamut from expositions of Beethoven's life story to a history lesson about Abraham Lincoln, as told from the perspective of Aaron Copland. Educators may like to filter the findings by Grade Level (PK-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12), Subject (English Language Learner, Foreign Language, Language Arts, Life Sciences, Math, Social Studies, and others), or by a selection of dozens of Tags, such as America, Animals, Dance, Song, and many others. Meanwhile, readers will also find a hearty selection of Lesson Ideas for Any Music within the Music and Your Curriculum section. Together, these excellent lesson plans can provide educators from a range of subjects with fresh and innovative ways to enliven their classrooms using the power of music. [CNH]

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The Mindful Teachers website is virtually loaded with resources for educators who would like to integrate mindful awareness into their classrooms, their careers, and their lives. Created by mindfulness practitioner and English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher, Catharine Hannay, the site includes an excellent blog, tabs dedicated to the Benefits of Mindfulness, Expert Interviews, and Self-Care for Teachers, and a section dedicated to Posters & Quizzes. Additionally, many teachers will appreciate the Mindfulness Activities and Teaching Resources section, which is chockfull of exercises and lessons that teach mindfulness, compassion, and social-emotional skills. For those who want more, there are also links to external mindfulness resources from around the web. [CNH]

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Access Islam, an educational tool produced by WNET Channel Thirteen in New York City, is a tremendous resource for educators looking for ways to convey the rich history and practices of Islam to students in the fourth through eighth grades. While RealPlayer is required to watch the video segments, which originally aired on the PBS series, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, including documentary footage of Muslim Prayer, Somali Muslim in Maine, and other fascinating topics, most of the resources are available without any extra applications. Readers may like to begin with the excellent Timeline, which begins with the life of the prophet Muhammad (560-661), moves through the great Muslim dynasties of the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Sejuks and the Fatimids, and the Ottoman Empire, before culminating in the Modern Era. Educators will find much to appreciate in the ten lesson plans listed on the site, including expositions on Ramadan Observance, The Five Pillars of Islam, and the Hajj: Journey to Mecca, among other topics. The site also features an excellent, alphabetically organized Glossary. [CNH]

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This rich and complex treatment of colonial New England through the use of maps will take high school students on a historical journey into the actions and ideas that shaped the early United States. The Lesson itself includes an excellent introduction, a list of Guiding Questions, clear Learning Objectives, some basic Background information, Preparation Instructions for educators who would like to integrate the lesson into their classroom, an overview of Lesson Activities, tools for Assessment, and ideas for Extending the Lesson. Compiled by professors at the City College of New York and built to cover two social studies classroom periods while developing skills in critical analysis, historical analysis, maps, primary resource use, and other areas, this lesson contains everything necessary for an excellent peek into the colonial America. [CNH]

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An abecedarian is a poem in which the first letter of each line follows the alphabet, starting with A and ending with Z. Landays is a form of folk poetry from Afghanistan which is meant to be recited or sung aloud and is formed by complex couplets. Reader-Response theory, on the other hand, is a poststructuralist literary theory that gained prominence in the 1960s and emphasizes the readers response to a poem, rather than the author's poetic intentions. Scout readers who are fascinated by the myriad distinctions, definitions, and subtleties of the poetic form will learn these things and much, much more in the Poetry Foundation's Glossary of Poetic Terms, which contains within its ample coffers a veritable legion of historically fascinating and lyrically compelling words and phrases. [CNH]

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Inside Higher Ed's coverage of community colleges offers an insider's perspective on the trends and developments taking place within two-year colleges across the country. Readers may like to start with the landing page, which usually features a recently published survey, a recently published booklet, community college-related posts from the Inside Higher Ed blog, and popular articles from the archives, as well as sidebar listing jobs on community colleges around the country. Readers may then like to scout the latest in Section Topics such as Curriculum, Enrollment, Finances, Leadership, and Views. For example, a recent article in the Leadership section profiles City Colleges of Chicago Chancellor Cheryl Hyman, who has been commended for graduation-rate improvements, but faces challenges from faculty and other difficulties. [CNH]

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The Constitutional Sources Project (ConSource) seeks to revolutionize how people experience history by "democratizing access" to the source materials of the U.S. Constitution, such as related letters, journals, newspapers, articles, and speeches. Readers may like to begin by perusing the Blog, which presents newly uploaded materials and accessible scholarly writings by ConSource staff. From there, the Documents section is well worth a visit. Here readers will find links to the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, constitutional convention records, and other primary documents that have been central to American history and culture. The Constitutional Index, meanwhile, sorts the U.S. Constitution by section, amendment, and clause, making for an organized and educational read. [CNH]

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This publication from the Society for Neuroscience may be targeted at those in neuroscience and related fields, but anyone with an interest in the practicalities of academia and the sciences will find parallels to their own interests and preoccupations. For example, posts in the Diversity section (Explore by Topic) include such articles as "Mentors: Here's How You Can Encourage Women to Stay in Science" and "On Speaking Up: Why Your Voice is Needed to Increase Women in Neuroscience." Site content has been organized into Categories, such as Career Advice, Professional Development, Scientific Research, and Outreach, so that staying on top of relevant issues is easy. The Scientific Research category, in particular, holds many interesting wonders, such as "Why is the Size of an Object Unchanged Regardless of Changes in Viewing Distance?" and "The Drowsy Effect of Sugar." The site may also be Explored by Audience, including Undergraduate, Graduate Student, Postdoctoral Fellow and Trainee, Early Career, Mid-Career, Advanced Career, and others. [CNH]

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Few blogs on the Internet today are as erudite as Sarah Werner's Wynken de Worde. Named for the 16th century Dutch printer and publisher who popularized the printing press in England, Werner's blog draws on her education at the University of Pennsylvania (she earned a PhD in English) and her work at the Folger Library (where she was a Digital Media Strategist). At the time of this writing, featured entries included an expose on the joys of keeping a book list with notes (and a link to her own list for 2015), a kind of love letter about a newly digitized map in the Stanford collection, and the wonderful, "questions to ask when you learn of digitization projects." For librarians, book lovers, and anyone obsessed with literary marginalia, Wynken de Worde will come as a welcome find. [CNH]

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This entertaining and educational site from the New York Public Library allows readers to explore Manhattan's Fifth Avenue using both photographs from 1911 and paired images from the current iteration of Google Maps. Readers may use the directives "go south," "go north," and "cross the street" to move through the parallel landscapes. The results are hypnotizing. In the opening image, the New York Public Library rests on a treeless street free of cars in the 1911 version, while it is dwarfed by large buildings in the 2015 image. Other images showcase horses and carriages juxtaposed with delivery trucks and taxis. Readers will notice the copious sense of space that the streets possess in the early 20th century images, compared with the trafficked busyness of the contemporary images, among other more subtle differences. Readers may also opt to open the images in the NYPL's Digital Collections, where the vivid photographs are accompanied by detailed information and may be downloaded for free. [CNH]

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As this engrossing site from the National Science Foundation (NSF) website notes, most ecosystems in the United States depend on snow. Whether it is the aggregated snowpack that feeds into the rivers that sustain our agriculture, or the spring flowers that need the nutrients that come from snow to thrive, heterogenous components of our geographies need the winter months. On the site, various articles unpack the wonders of snowpack. For instance, A Conifer's View of Snow, which is one article in an eight-part series, tells the tale of how an NSF-funded research team used trees to measure and predict moisture in the High Sierras of California. Meanwhile, Nature's Igloo explores the wonders of the subnivium, the snowbound refuge that many creatures use to insulate themselves from the cold. [CNH]

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This site from the European Commission examines the progress that continental Europe has made on gender equality over the past half a century, as well as the steps still to be made. Here readers will find information on such topics as the Gender pay gap, Gender balance in decision-making positions, Equal economic independence, Ending gender-based violence, and others. Each category features links to other informative sites from around the web, as well as recently published reports, news, and other resources. For example, the report "Gender Gaps in Subjective Wellbeing," which is downloadable as a free PDF, pieces out the reasons for gender gaps in wellbeing, while another report from 2015 shows that victim-blaming is still common in the EU when there are reports of violence against women. [CNH]

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Brooklyn Street Art tracks the burgeoning, innovative, and ever-changing street art of New York City's most populous borough. The site opens with daily blog entries that both textually and visually engage with the latest news and trends. Recent posts have featured political art by Vicki Da Silva and Fintan Magee, explorations of love and faith by Mr. Renaissance and an unnamed artist, respectively, and many other beautiful, public works. Readers may also like to explore the Interviews/Studio Visits tab to peruse conversations with local street artists and view their work. With archives that date back to 2008 and a Gallery with explosive and often surprisingly touching images, Brooklyn Street Art is a worthwhile stopover for anyone interested in the forefront of public art culture in the United States.[CNH]

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The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics was originally published in book form in 1993. Edited by Stanford University's David R. Henderson, the informative reference guide has since been transformed into an accessible website where readers may sort through the writings of more than 150 well-regarded economists, as well as over 80 biographies of influential economists and a host of tables and charts that seek to bring economic theory to life. Readers may search the encyclopedia using keywords and advanced search function, or browse by title, author, or category. In addition, the landing page features rotating resources. For example, at the time of this writing, the biography of James A. Mirlees occupied a prominent place on the home page, along with an article on the division of labor theory and links to such venerable topics as Corporate Taxation, Public Choice, Industrial Revolution and the Standard of Living, and others. [CNH]

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Created by Pratt University Library and Information Science (LIS) students Megan DeArmond, Diana Moronta, and Laurin Paradise in March of 2015, this online exhibition mines the resources of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) to present the history of some of the American women who flew. "The Development of Aviation", the opening section of the site, makes clear that although women were not terribly involved with the "trial-and-error filled beginnings of aviation" in the early 1900s, increasing numbers of women entered the field during World War I and between the Wars, with a big uptick during WWII. Images of the T-6 Texan, flown by women pilots and trainers during WWII, are in the "WWII-era aircrafts" sub-section. The "First Aviatrixes" section includes short illustrated biographies of Harriet Quimby, Blanche Stuart Scott, Ruth Bancroft Law, and Katherine Stinson - the fourth woman in the U.S. to obtain a pilot's license. The parallel "Daredevils" section includes women stunt flyers and wing walkers: Marie Meyer, Bessie Coleman, The Powder Puff derby, and Amelia Earhart. The remaining sections of the site are "Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs)" and "Legacy," tracing the impact of early women flyers to present day, when women make up about 19% of the Air Force, and there are estimated to be about 4,000 women commercial airline pilots. [DS]

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For readers looking for a break from the doldrums of the workday, Earth View offers a mesmerizing escape. Here readers will find a prodigious collection of dazzling landscapes from the seemingly endless archives of Google Earth. Whether readers are perusing the lakes of the Tibetan Plateau or the intricacies of a sky-based view of a French airport, these images are chosen to inspire wonder at the variety and allure of planet Earth. Besides scrolling through the thousands of images showcased here, readers may also add the program as a browser extension and, perhaps best of all, download any image as wallpaper for desktop or mobile devices. [CNH]

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The idea behind FlashTabs is as simple as it is effective. Let's say you are studying for an anatomy exam, or a driver's test, or a learning a new language. How do you integrate the information and the studying process throughout the day? FlashTab has an answer. The Chrome browser extension lets you create digital flashcards that will appear every time you open a new tab. This way, learning is integrated into daily activities at work and/or at home. Adding the extension takes only a few clicks of your mouse. From there, create a deck of flashcards and activate. Then learn your targeted information as you browse the Internet. [CNH]

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