The Scout Report -- Volume 23, Number 8

In honor of Black History Month in the United States and Canada, JSTOR Daily has compiled this collection of articles. As of this write-up, the collection includes twenty stories, each of which cites articles from JSTOR's extensive journal database along with other related materials. For example, in Matthew Wills's article on the recent announcement that Harriet Tubman will be featured on the twenty dollar bill, readers will find links to two journal articles. One is a historical piece from the OAH Magazine of History that explores Tubman's life and myriad accomplishments. The other is a 2005 article from the Canadian Art Review that investigates existing portraiture of Tubman. Meanwhile, in More Hidden Figures of NASA History, Shannon Luders-Manuel highlights black individuals who have worked for NASA, including Charles F. Bolden, who headed the administration from 2009 through January 2017. Other articles explore Shirley Chisholm's presidential campaign, the achievements of the Pullman Porter's Union, and the fiction of Toni Morrison. [MMB]

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With well over one billion speakers, Mandarin Chinese is the world's most commonly spoken language. On this website from the University of Texas at Austin's Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL), visitors can learn and practice speaking, listening, and reading Mandarin for free. For example, visitors can click on Pronunciation to visit Pitch Perfect Pinyin, a resource that uses interactive exercises to test users understanding of pronunciation and tone. Learners can also access a number of free, interactive flashcards via the Vocabulary section, or watch videos explaining grammatical concepts (through the center's YouTube page) in the Grammar section. Another highlight of this website is the Chinese Dialogues podcast (available via Listening), where learners can practice listening skills on their mobile devices. Collectively, this website provides a diverse collection of resources to help learners of Mandarin build their skills. [MMB]

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The Sierra Club is home to this extensive collection of student and teacher resources about the life and work of John Muir. These resources will be of interest to classroom teachers as well as educators and youth workers in out-of-school environments. K-12 classroom instructors (including elementary school teachers, and upper level science, writing, and social studies teachers) may want to start by exploring the More Teacher Resources sections, which includes lesson plans and classroom activities for a variety of grade levels and subjects, all created by the Sierra Club. External resources and information may be found in the More John Muir-Related Educational Programs section, while the For Students section features a number of resources to aid youth in research projects about Muir's life and work. These resources include articles, timelines, photographs, and links to outside websites. While a few of the hyperlinks on this webpage are no longer up-to-date, the majority of these links work just fine. In addition, most of the resources (with the exception of one curricular packet) are available free of charge. [MMB]

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During the nineteenth century, Cornell University was sometimes called the "Godless University." In contrast to most other colleges and universities of the time, Cornell was not affiliated with any church or religious group. The university did, however, collect an impressive archive of materials related to religion throughout the United States and around the world. Today, the Cornell University Library hosts Gods and Scholars, an online exhibition of this diverse archival material. Visitors can browse this collection, which includes religious texts, art, objects, and architecture, by a variety of themes. Texts can be browsed by linguistic region, including East and Central Asia, Near East, and Europe and the Americas. Other categories include The Study and Practice of Religion, Witchcraft and Witch Hunts, and Reformation. Items of note include a complete nineteenth century Quechua prayer book, Aramaic incantation bowls dated from the sixth through ninth centuries CE, and a series of biographical sketches of Martin Luther. Best of all, a well-developed zoom feature lets visitors examine these texts and objects in detail. [MMB]

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American philosopher, Eugene Gendlin, has been noted for his influence in the fields of both philosophy and psychology. After earning a PhD in philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1956, Gendlin went on to serve as a professor of both philosophy and psychology at the university. Gendlin also collaborated with pioneering psychologist Carl Rogers. The Gendlin Online Library offers an extensive collection of Gendlin's published and unpublished works. This library contains 137 documents in total, and can be browsed by central themes or topics, such as Focusing, a therapeutic approach that Gendlin developed along with Rogers. While some of the items in the Gendlin Library must be purchased, many are freely available to the public. This collection may be of interest to students of philosophy and psychology alike, as well as to those who study the history of those disciplines. [MMB]

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From the Physics Classroom, "an online, free to use physics website developed primarily for beginning physics students and their teachers," comes this series of lessons about vectors. These lessons are designed for use as an interactive, multimedia textbook, providing teachers with a useful instructional tool and students with a useful study aid. Divided into three main lessons (Vectors: Fundamentals and Operations, Projectile Motion, and Forces in Two Dimensions), this textbook includes a variety of accessible explanations, real-world examples, helpful diagrams, animations, and practice problems. One especially useful feature of this resource is that the solutions to problem sets are hidden from users until they select a link, allowing students to test their skills and understanding. In addition, embedded hyperlinks let students quickly look up vocabulary terms or concepts as they read or work through a problem. [MMB]

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The Colorado Agricultural College (now known as Colorado State University) was founded in 1870 in what was then the Colorado Territory of the United States. Offering academic programs in farming, ranching, and home economics, the college played a key role in the economic, political, and cultural development of Colorado. This trove of primary documents published between 1820 and 1945 was made possible by funding from the United States Agricultural Information Network (USAIN), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the National Agricultural Library (NAL) and commemorates the history of agriculture and agricultural education in the Centennial State. There are more than 1,200 items represented here, organized across nine thematic collections. The most substantial collection is Bulletins - Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station, featuring advice on everything from "Cattle Feeding in Colorado" (May, 1896) to "Irrigation waters and their effects" (October, 1903). [CDR]

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From professional mandolinist Brian Oberlin, comes this website dedicated to the stringed instrument heard in numerous classical, traditional, and folk songs. Oberlin teaches a series of mandolin workshops and lessons in his home state of Oregon, but mandolin teachers and students anywhere in the world can download a number of printable resources from this online lesson hub. Here, visitors will find a large variety of sheet music (arranged by themes including Swing, Bluegrass and Fiddle Tunes, and Christmas) along with practice exercises, chord sheets, and more. Visitors may also want to check out the Listen Section, where one can listen to audio clips of several notable mandolin tunes. [MMB]

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Which tree stands at the geographical center of Texas? How many trees serve as tombstones for Texas settlers and outlaws? As this site attests, there is much to learn about the state of Texas from its historic trees - living and dead. Famous Trees of Texas was first published in 1970 by the Texas Forest Service. Today, this website serves as an extension to the hardcopy book and shares the initial purpose of the project: "to memorialize those trees which have been witness to some of the exciting periods and events in Texas' frontier history." Visitors to this site can take a closer look at this select group of trees in the Explore Our Trees section, where records are organized by Tree Name, Historical Period, Historical Topic, Species, and County. Trees that have died since the book was first published are indicated with a tombstone, and suggestions for new trees to commemorate are welcomed in the Nominate A Tree section. [CDR]

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Originally featured in The Scout Report in 2002, BrainConnection has expanded substantially while continuing to be an engaging resource about how the brain works and how people learn. Some resources, such as those in the Brain Teasers & Games section, will appeal to younger learners. Most resources, however, have been curated for parents, educators, and the generally curious. Readers will find accessible information about everything from sleep to reading and language to child development in the Library tab Similarly, in Brain Basics, readers will find detailed information about a number of brain concepts that will be helpful for anyone looking to better understand new scientific news or research. Topics covered here include brain plasticity, the relationship between the brain and vision, and the impact of caffeine on the brain. [MMB]

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Have you ever wondered what it would be like if Tsar Nicholas II, Vladimir Lenin, and Grigori Rasputin had access to social media during the Russian Revolution of 1917? A team of Russian writers, artists, and software developers, with the support from the State Archive of Russian Federation, the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, and a number of other museums and institutions, have endeavored to do just that with 1917. Free History. This project explores the tumultuous events of 1917 through a series of imaginary social media accounts that feature actual archival material authored by key players in the revolution. Each day, the website is updated with a series of posts that include the content of letters, artwork, and news items from exactly a century ago. (For example, if you visit this website on February 24, 2017, you will see items from February 24, 1917). On February 17, Paul Klee posts his painting "Wanderer-birds," Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich pens a letter to Nicholas II, and Lenin rails about "[w]hat a swine Trotsky is." Facebook users may share these updates on their own newsfeeds, creating a unique way for individuals today to engage with history. This website is translated into English courtesy of the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute. [MMB]

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With tax time fast approaching, it may be a good time to revisit On Your Money, a weekly public radio broadcast from Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR). Each week, host Joy Cardin welcomes financial expert Kevin McKinley to discuss an array of personal finance matters. Here readers will find the official webpage for this informative show with an extensive archive of episodes. Weekly topics range from saving for retirement to paying off student loans to buying a second home. Episodes may be streamed live from the website or downloaded for listening offline. Episodes in the archives stretch back to 2011, with the more recent ones offering a brief synopsis of the weekly focus. [CDR]

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The Corning Museum of Glass, located in Corning, New York, is dedicated to the art, history and science of glass and glassmaking. Luckily for visitors unable to visit the physical museum, this website highlights the museum's expansive collection of over 50,000 objects from across 35 centuries. Select the Collection tab to search the collection for items of interest, learn about upcoming and past exhibitions, or take a self-guided tour through the museum's Contemporary Art + Design Galleries. This last section is a great way for virtual visitors to learn more about the story of glass-making, with sections that cover the Origins of glass-making, the Rise of Venetian Glassmaking, and Glass in America among others. Descriptions of each gallery are accompanied by featured objects that reveal more information (artist, provenance, technique, etc.) when selected. The Research section is also worth a look. Here, visitors may explore the digital collections and databases of the museum's Juliette K. and Leonard S. Rakow Research Library. Featured Digital Collections include rare books, drawings, trade catalogs, and other glass-related documents. [CDR]

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For book lovers and print culture enthusiasts, Oregon State University's Mary McDonald Rare Book and Manuscript Collection contains items created from the year 3000 BCE through the twentieth century. Collectively, these materials illustrate the global history of writing and print. In this online exhibit, visitors can closely examine select digitized items. These items are organized into categories that include A Brief History of writing (which highlights a Sumerian Cuneiform Tablet from the year 2041 BCE); The Rise of Craft Bookbinding (which features a number of photographs of gold tooling and feathered marbling on book covers and bindings); and Improving the Press (which exhibits a striking colored plate from an eighteenth century British gardening manual). In addition to these resources related to the early history of press, the McDonald Collection also contains a number of items dedicated to more recent developments in nineteenth and twentieth century print. For example, the Printed Media and the American Civil War section considers how the war influenced the American newspaper industry. Meanwhile, Literature in the Modern Era includes photographs of pulp fiction covers from the 1930s. [MMB]

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Shakespeare and the Players is an online exhibition that will appeal to Shakespeare fans as well as lovers of vintage postcards. This collection, developed by Emory University English professor Henry Rusche, features over 1,000 promotional postcards for Shakespearean plays performed in the United States and the United Kingdom during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. New visitors may want to start by viewing an introductory video or by checking out the Preface, which features an essay by Rusche about the significance of postcards to turn of the century culture in general and to theatre in particular. Postcards, which often featured actors in full custom, served an important publicity purpose: theatre companies would mail these postcards to frequent theatre patrons to woo them to their latest productions. Many of these postcards feature a full schedule of performance dates and locations on the back, providing contemporary viewers with additional information about the theatre world at this time. Visitors can browse this remarkable collection by actor (Players) or by Play. [MMB]

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Stereoscopy was once a popular way to create the illusion of a three-dimensional image. Especially prevalent in the nineteenth century, stereoscopy involves viewing two photographs simultaneously through a device called a stereoscope. The New York Public Library (NYPL) has recently brought Stereoscopy into the twenty-first century with the Stereogranimator. This tool allows users to create their own Stereographs - in the form of a Graphic Interchange Format (GIF). Visitors are invited to use any stereographic image from the NYPL's Digital Collections, or from a number of other participating archives, including the Boston Public Library, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. National Archives. Alternatively, visitors may use any two photographs from their own Flickr account in order to generate an animated stereogram. [MMB]

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Whether you have an event you are excitedly waiting for or a deadline you want to be sure to remember, the Countdown App may be for you. Created by Time and Date, a Norwegian company that produces numerous calendar related tools and phone applications, Countdown is a relatively straightforward tool. Users simply enter an event along with a date and time, and Countdown will reveal the days, minutes, and seconds until that event. Visitors can select a thematic background to accompany their event by either choosing one of the pre-made themes, such as Birthday, Vacation, and Tax Day, or by uploading a custom picture. Countdown is available for both iOS devices and Android devices. [MMB]

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