The Scout Report -- Volume 22, Number 46

The Terra Foundation for American Art, in collaboration with a number of partners, has created this collection of interactive exhibits and classroom resources dedicated to artistic portrayals of the American Civil War. Featuring a total of 128 images, including portraits, photographs of sculptures, newspaper illustrations, and paintings, this website highlights how artists have depicted various aspects of the war, from slavery to famous battles to the homefront. Each image is accompanied by information about the work and its artists, questions for consideration or discussion, and suggestions for further readings. Visitors can browse these works chronologically in the Image Gallery or through a series of themed Exhibits, such as Lincoln, Emancipation and the Meaning of Freedom, and Remembering the Civil War. Featured works include Samuel J. Miller's mid-nineteenth century daguerreotype of Frederick Douglass; Winslow Homer's 1864 On Guard; and Shirley Firestone's 1864 Harriet Tubman. Instructors can check out detailed lesson plans and classroom activities that utilize this remarkable collection in Classroom Projects. [MMB]

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As mathematics instructors know, powerful visuals and engaging problems are key to teaching students new numeracy skills and concepts. TED-Ed, the youth and education initiative tied to the popular lecture series, is home to a number of short videos related to mathematics. Created by a team of educators, content experts (including TED speakers), animators, and video directors, this collection includes short, instructional films about key math vocabulary and concepts as well as a series of mathematical riddles (these would make strong classroom warm-up or team building activities). Instructors can search for videos by category (Algebra, Geometry, and Number Operations) or browse for materials by Student Level. One recent instruction short, for example, helps students understand the concept of a vector. Another explains "why the metric system matters." Each video is accompanied by a series of multiple choice quizzes (in the Think section) and information about related concepts and resources (in the Dig Deeper section). [MMB]

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The Institute of International Education publishes Open Doors Data, an information resource about international students who study at U.S. colleges and universities and U.S. students who study abroad. This data may be of interest to higher education professionals as well as policy makers. On this website, visitors can check out a number of data tables and press releases about the Open Doors 2016. These resources accompany the organization's annual report which is also available for purchase on the website. Published since 1954, all data from this report is obtained by surveying accredited U.S. colleges and universities. One highlight is a series of infographics that highlight key findings from the institute's research. Visitors can also search for data of interest via a number of categories, including Fast Facts, Economic Impact, Intensive English Programs, Community Colleges, and Fact Sheets by U.S. State, County, and Region. [MMB]

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The Medical Heritage Library is a "digital curation collaborative" between numerous leading medical libraries, including the August C. Long Health Science Library at Columbia University, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, and the Wellcome Library, to name just a few. These libraries are working together on this remarkable collection that provides insight into the history of medicine in the United States and Great Britain. Through the website's Content tab, visitors can browse hundreds of medical journals, pamphlets, and books dating back to the sixteenth century. Researchers can also conduct a keyword Search in order to find relevant material within this extensive (and still growing) collection. Educators or the more casually interested visitors may want to simply start with the homepage, which highlights a variety of material from this collection as well as current exhibits and projects at participating libraries. For example, in the most recent blog post (as of this writing), readers can hear from Hanna Clutterbuck-Cook as she discusses seventeenth century blood transfusions. [MMB]

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From the University of Colorado's PhET (Physics Education Technology) Interactive Simulation series comes Build An Atom, a collection of interactive tools that helps students understand the structure and properties of different elements. In the main interactive, Build an Atom, students can add neutrons, protons, and electrons to an atom to explore how manipulating each of these components will, in turn, impact the atom's element identity, mass number, net charge, and stability. In addition, students can play a series of games to test their ability to correctly label atoms based on their particle make-up, or to correctly diagram atoms based on the element symbol, atomic number, and charge. By creating an account, teachers can access additional tips and resources for using this interactive tool. [MMB]

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From the Harvard Library comes the Colonial North American Project, a remarkable collection of digitized letters, books, official documents, sermons, sheet music, and other archival materials from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As the site notes, "these documents reveal a great deal about topics such as social life, education, trade, finance, politics, revolution, war, women, Native American life, slavery, science, medicine, and religion." At this time, highlights from the collection include an original manuscript of plays and poems by Mercy Otis Warren; a number of letters and public addresses penned by Harvard President, John Thornton Kirkland; and handwritten sermons by Cotton Mather. These items can currently be browsed by Date, Title, or document Creator. The Colonial North American Project also features five Essays that provide additional insight into select documents. For example, "Politics in the Early American Republic" describes the role that newspaper editor John Dennie played in promoting the early American republic. Readers can then peruse a number of letters written to Dennie during the late eighteenth century. [MMB]

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Reading Apprenticeship is a method of teaching literacy that centers on supporting student metacognition - or the ability to strategically think and reflect on their own learning. Developed over the course of three decades by a team of educators at the educational nonprofit WestEd, Reading Apprenticeship centers on a series of practices and strategies that can be used to support literacy development in the K-12, higher education, and adult education contexts. On this page, instructors can download a number of free resources related to this method, including an extensive overview of the philosophy and practices behind the approach and a number of graphic organizers to use in the classroom. The graphic organizers are designed to help students reflect on their own reading (e.g. to make predictions, identify areas of confusion, and name appropriate strategies, etc.) and can be easily incorporated into any English or literacy classroom. The resources available here, free of charge, come from the 2012 book Reading for Understanding by Ruth Schoenbach, Cynthia Greenleaf, and Lynn Murphey. [MMB]

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The United Nations defines cities with populations of 10 million or more as megacities. Many of these megacities are rapidly expanding and require natural resources to sustain their growing populations and industries; many are also home to economic disparities. With these factors in mind, how are megacities distributing safe drinking water and sanitation and how is global climate change impacting water availability in these cities? In December 2015, UNESCO hosted a conference entitled "Water, Megacities, and Global Change" to address these and other questions. In this accompanying report, readers can learn about how fifteen cities - including Beijing, Chicago, Lagos, and Paris - are currently addressing water-related issues. In doing so, the report highlights both the unique challenges faced by these cities along with possible common solutions. [MMB]

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India's Ministry of Culture is in the process of creating a national repository of digitized materials from many Indian museums. Recently, the Ministry selected ten museums from around the nation to prioritize in these efforts. These museums include the National Museum in New Delhi, the Indian Museum of Kolkata, and the National Galleries of Modern Art in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. On this website, visitors can explore a number of materials that have already been digitized. These images are arranged through over 100 curated Virtual Exhibitions, and can be explored by selecting the tab with the same name. As of this writing, the collection includes an especially impressive collection of over 200 portraits. Other collections of note include Stone Age Tools, Depictions of 18th & 19th century India by Stay at Home British Artists, and Life Scenes of Buddha in sculptures at Nagarjunakonda, to name just a few. Each image in these collections can be explored in close detail and is accompanied by a description. [MMB]

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The Hubble Space Telescope website contains a remarkable and diverse collection of videos. These videos include original footage from the telescope, artistic renditions, three-dimensional animations, and Hubblecasts - short documentary films that highlight recent ESA/NASA developments. Visitors can browse this video collection by subject tag, including, for example, Exoplanets, Nebulae, and Spacecraft. One recent Hubblecast video explores the question of how many galaxies exist and how the Hubble telescope has contributed to our knowledge in this area; another highlights how technology that was originally developed for the Hubble has sparked technological advances in everyday life. Another recent video features a mesmerizing artistic rendition of the Milky Way. These videos would provide strong resources in any science classroom, but are also simply enjoyable to browse on their own. [MMB]

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In the 1880s, Hans Jakob Schmid developed a technique known as photochrom, whereby artists would press photo negatives onto lithographic and chromatographic printing plates to add color. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, before color photography was widely available and affordable, photochrom was used to add life and artistry to photographs. In this Library of Congress digital collection, visitors can browse a number of gorgeous photochrom images from around the world. Library staff has arranged the collection by country, and visitors can further narrow their search by specific location or subject. Many of these photochroms depict landscapes, while others portray city scenes and remarkable architectural works. Each image is accompanied by complete cataloging information, including the date of creation. Best of all, by clicking on each image, visitors can zoom in to see intricate and enticing details. [MMB]

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John Peabody Harrington was an ethnologist and linguist at the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology between 1915 and 1955. During that time, Harrington was dedicated to recording Native American languages throughout North America. Today, the Institute's remarkable J.P. Harrington Collection documents over 130 languages across North America via written notes and sound recordings. The collection also includes photographs and other artifacts collected by Harrington. On this website, visitors can see the full catalogue of the J.P. Harrington collection and explore a number of digitized archives. By visiting the Access the Collection page, visitors can explore the collection by media type, such as Photographs or Sound Recordings. Alternatively, visitors can explore a map of Native Languages of North America or a more detailed map of California, where Harrington did much of his research. The Sounds Recordings are perhaps the highlight of this collection and many are available for online listening. In some cases, these recordings are the only existing audio records of languages that are no longer spoken. [MMB]

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Christopher D. Cook, a librarian at the Ohio State University, has curated this impressive collection of postage stamps, stationery, and other postage-related items that feature Dante Alighieri. Visitors can browse this collection by item type, which include not only traditional postage stamps but also "miniature sheets" (which feature multiple related stamps); "first day cover" envelopes; and official postage cancellations. Items in the collection span from the early twentieth century through the present and visitors can peek at items from Italy, the United States, Rwanda, Argentina, and Cambodia. Not surprisingly, the aesthetic styles of these items vary significantly. Each artifact is accompanied by a short description of artist information and details about its release. As a whole, this collection exhibits the wide-ranging influence of Dante throughout time and around the globe. Those interested in exploring further can check out additional resources on both Dante and the history of postage stamps in the References & Links section. [MMB]

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For anyone interested in learning more about all living things and how they interact with one another, Untamed Science is a highly engaging video series and blog dedicated to the topic. Headed by University of Hawaii ecologist Rob Nelson, Untamed Science features accessible descriptions and entertaining videos about specific creatures (found in the Tree of Life section) as well as central scientific topics (found in the Biology section). The style of these videos range from mesmerizing (such as the gorgeously shot amphibian video) to goofy (such as the music video about species classifications). All are informative. These videos are accompanied by accessible descriptions and diagrams. Visitors may also want to check out the Untamed Science blog, which features science news and DIY experiments. [MMB]

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If you love a good debate, or are interested in considering a variety of contested issues in depth, Intelligence Squared, "the world's premier forum for debate and discussion," may appeal. Founded in the United Kingdom and currently based out of seven countries (including the U.S. Australia, Hong Kong, Greece, Chile, and Israel), the series features "Oxford style" debates between two teams of debaters. Each debate is staged before a live audience who are polled at the beginning of each debate. The winner is determined by the side best able to raise audience support. On the United States edition of Intelligence Squared, visitors can browse previous debates by topics such as Law, Culture, Health, and Religion, to name just a few. Visitors can then watch each debate and check out related resources, including papers authored by debate participants. Alternatively, debate fans can subscribe to Intelligence Squared as a podcast via iTunes. Each debate is approximately ninety minutes in length. [MMB]

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This exhibition from Stanford University Special Collections highlights the work of graphic designer and photographer Herbert Matter. The 293 items in the exhibition are drawn from the Herbert Matter Archive, a massive collection dating from 1937 through 1984 that includes photographs, books, audiovisual materials, documents and manuscripts, and negatives and transparencies of Matter's artistic and commercial photographic work. Matter had a long friendship with the artist Alberto Giacometti, whom he began photographing when they met in 1960. Matter's portrait photographs of Giacometti and Giacometti's art work form the largest series within the archive, and there are 79 images of Giacometti in the web exhibition; the next largest grouping is land and seascapes with 48 items. Stanford has implemented an IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) viewer so that images can be viewed and manipulated online. It's also possible to download thumbnails and copy or embed code to link to an image from a personal website or blog. [DS]

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Firefox Focus serves two purposes. First, it greatly increases user privacy by blocking any and all user tracking, cookies, and advertisements. Users automatically have a private browsing experience simply by using this browser - there is no need to personally adjust privacy settings or erase one's web history. Second, because sites that track user behavior are blocked, users can experience faster - and less cluttered - internet browsing. In keeping with the dual aims of simplicity and privacy, Firefox Focus does not allow for bookmarks or multiple tabs. However, if simplicity and privacy are you goals, this may be the browser for you. Firefox Focus is currently only available for iOS devices. [MMB]

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PDF Viewer is a free application, available for iOS and Android mobile devices, that allows users to view and annotate PDFs with ease. PDF viewer is unique in that it allows users to edit documents, e.g. delete pages, rotate pages, and add images and notes, and even add signatures, on any mobile device. Users can also easily check out a list of all recent annotations and edits, facilitating easy collaboration. PDF Viewer will be of use to anyone looking to quickly and easily collaborate on documents, and may prove especially helpful for the classroom or office. [MMB]

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