The Scout Report -- Volume 23, Number 26

The New Deal left a mark on cities and rural areas across the United States via a number of federal work projects led by agencies including the Works Project Administration (WPA), the Public Works Administration (PWA), the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and more.The Living New Deal, a non-profit organization with support from the University of California, Berkeley's Department of Geography, documents the lasting impact of these projects across the country today. Visitors can explore these projects, which number well over 10,000, via an interactive map; projects may also be browsed by State, Category (e.g. Art, Forestry and Agriculture), New Deal Agency, or Artist. Each project entry includes a short description accompanied by photographs, exact location information, and source notes. This extensive collection allows visitors to learn about New Deal treasures in their own backyard. In addition, The Living New Deal offers an extensive encyclopedia of information related to the New Deal, including a timeline and short biographies of key figures. Educators and researchers will find links to additional resources of interest, including lesson plans and oral histories, under Resources. [MMB]

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Designed for mathematics educators, the Math Ed Podcast features conversations with experts across the globe about a wide variety of issues relating to mathematics instruction and the latest research in the field. This podcast was founded in 2012 by Samuel Otten, assistant professor of mathematics education at the University of Missouri. One recent episode features a conversation with Mandy Jensen and Dawn Berk, both of the University of Delaware School of Education, discussing their recent publication that examines the impact of an elementary mathematics education program on the instructional practices of six first-year teachers (all graduates of the same program). In another episode, UW-Madison professor emerita Elizabeth Fennema describes her research about gender and mathematics. [MMB]

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Art historians and music enthusiasts of all stripes may be interested in checking out the Musical Festivals Database, "a fully-searchable index of programs, personnel, ensembles and venues of musical festivals held between 1695 and 1940." As the team behind this website notes, these festivals were central to eighteenth and nineteenth century British musical culture and reveal changing aesthetic trends throughout this time. This database was created in 2013 and was designed by Chris Borgmeyer based on the research of Charles Edward McGuire, professor of musicology and music history at Oberlin College and the author of The British Music Festival, 1695- 1940. Visitors can search this database via four categories: People, Places/Festivals; Instrument/Voice Type; and Work. For example, a search for George Frederic Handel reveals dozen of festival records that featured work by the famed composer. Each of these records includes the date and location of each festival along with additional information, such as Performance Venues, Conductors, and Performers of note. [MMB]

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From Arizona State University's School of Life Sciences comes Ask A Biologist, which offers a plethora of resources for teaching and learning biology. The Scout Report initially featured this resource in 2004 when this website offered students and teachers the opportunity to submit a biology-related question for volunteer scientists to answer. Thirteen years later, Ask A Biologist still offers this service, but has also greatly expanded its collection of educational resources for K-12 classrooms and out-of-school learning spaces. These resources include interactive activities such as the Bird Finder (which allows users to enter details about a particular bird in order to identify it) and a number of online games. The Stories section features kid-friendly readings (in various languages) about a number of topics as well as guides to help young scientists learn how to read scientific articles. These guides include the PLOSable Biology series that provides guides to help students better understand recently published PLOS stories, including background information and key vocabulary. Educators may want to start exploring this resources by checking out the Teacher Toolkit, which curates some of the site's most popular resources for instructors, including readings, flashcards, and hands-on experiments. [MMB]

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The University of Pennsylvania Libraries offers the Magazines of Early American Datasets (MEAD), a collection of datasets for researchers of early American history. The datasets are collected from organizations such as the American Antiquarian Society as well as from individual scholars. Visitors can download datasets in whatever format their original authors used or as comma separated variables (.csv). Each entry also includes a codebook, allowing researchers to use this data with ease. One highlight of this collection is two early nineteenth century admissions books from the Eastern State Penitentiary, transcribed by Scott Ziegler of the American Philosophical Society and Michelle Ziogas of Drexel University. This dataset includes intake notes on each incarcerated individual. For example, the notes on a Philadelphia blacksmith charged with burglary reads: "Seems like an old convict & very insensible. No wish to intercourse with me on religious subjects." Other data sets include 19th Century American Children's Book Trade Directory (courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society); a collection of George Washington's shipping invoices; and the 1790 Census of black individuals living in Philadelphia. [MMB]

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Shakespeare educators, performers, and fans will want to check out this article collection dedicated to the prolific playwright. This collection comes from Palgrave Communications, an open-access online journal featuring articles related to a variety of topics in the humanities and social sciences. As of this write-up, this collection dedicated to the famous playwright features thirteen articles. The most recent one, published on June 20, 2017, is an analysis by Theresa McGarry and Kelsey Kiser of gender and speech patterns in Shakespeare's plays. Another recent article, authored by Katie Kowles of the University of Liverpool, considers Henry IV using Henri Lefebvre's conception of the "production of space." While these two articles invoke close readings of Shakespeare, other articles explore how Shakespeare's plays relate to history and other works of art. [MMB]

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Elementary School educators, art educators, language arts educators, and English Language Learner (ELL) educators alike may be interested in this collection of four lesson plans related to the intersections of art and language. Each lesson plan centers on a different work of art from the Getty's collections. For example, the lesson Tactile Poem-Forest Textures invites young learners to explore Hans Hoffman's 1585 painting ,A Hare in the Forest, in order to understand the concept of habitat and identify nouns and adjectives. As part of the lesson, learners contribute to a class poem based on the painting. Another lesson plan aimed at middle school and high school learners centers on Garry Winogrand's 1969 photograph, Hollywood Boulevard. This lesson invites students to create their own collage and prose inspired by the photograph. These four lessons each align with content area standards for language arts, visual arts, and English-language development in the state of California. In addition to lesson plans, readers will find an interdisciplinary classroom activity, "30 Second Look," that instructors can use with any work of art of their choice. [MMB]

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Green Chemistry, as the team behind this interactive lesson explain, "is a proactive approach to pollution prevention that teaches chemists how to develop products and materials in a manner that does not use hazardous substances, thus avoiding much waste, hazards, and associated costs." This lesson about the basic principles behind Green Chemistry is part of the MIT BLOSSOMS series, a collection of lessons plans that include a video to incorporate into a K-12 classroom alongside a detailed lesson plan. In this lesson, designed for a sixty-minute class session, high school chemistry teacher Ann Lambert leads students in the task of rewriting a lab procedure to make glue in order to make this process less wasteful and more safe. To do so, students participate in this glue-making lab with a critical eye at the beginning of the class session and then work as teams to revise the lab. As students complete this process, Lambert explains the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry. As with all MIT BLOSSOMS lessons, teachers will find all lesson plan materials along with suggestions about how they might adapt this lesson to best fit the needs of their classroom. [MMB]

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Founded in 2013, The Calvert Journal is an online magazine that centers on arts and culture in the New East (eastern Europe, the Balkans, Russia, and Central Asia). This publication is part of the Calvert 22 Foundation, a UK-based non-profit organization founded by Nonna Materkova in 2012 to support and promote arts in this region. The Calvert Journal enables art fans to learn about a number of contemporary artists, photographers, architects, musicians, and designers and to explore their innovative work. One highlight of this magazine is the New East 100, an ongoing feature that highlights both artists and artistic spaces (including coffee shops and "Mountain retreats) to keep an eye on. Art fans will also want to check out the regularly updated Photography and Video sections for new works of art, which highlight the work of a wide range of artists. The Travel section, meanwhile, highlights places and spaces (from Siberia to Transylvania to Lake Prespa) of interest through a combination of striking photography and essays. [MMB]

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For bird lovers, BirdNote is a delightful weekly podcast and blog dedicated to the diversity of bird species and their unique behavior and characteristics. Each episode is just a minute or two in length, yet is full of a lot of interesting information, including bird calls, often courtesy of the Cornell Ornithology Lab. As of this write-up, the most recent episode of BirdNote (which visitors can find under the Shows tab) explores the conditions that robins look for when they build nests. Another recent episode investigates how ravens are becoming a more common sight in urban areas. Each episode is accompanied by a photographs and videos of the featured bird and links to additional resources. In addition to the podcast, visitors to BirdNote may want to check out the Blog for additional news and tidbits about birds and the Gallery for photographs and videos of birds. [MMB]

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"Everywhere has been written about," writes the team behind the Poetry Atlas, an interactive tool that helps poetry fans find location-specific poems. Poems are arranged by a series of pins across a google map of the world; thus, visitors will find Evelyn Scott's "Autumn Dusk in Central Park" via a pin marking Central Park; Carl Sandberg's "Omaha" is marked in the Nebraska city (the poem is also marked in Council Bluffs, Iowa and the Missouri River, which are also mentioned in the poem); and Alfred Lloyd Tennyson "Beautiful City" appears in Paris. Visitors can also search for poems by poet and title; in addition, the Poetry Atlas also groups poems by categories (e.g. Poems About Battlefields; Poems About Rivers; Poems about Beaches). At this time the Poetry Atlas focuses on certain regions more than others. As a crowd sourced effort, visitors are invited to submit additional poems to contributions@poetryatlas.com. [MMB]

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From the Architect of the Capitol (AOC), the federal agency dedicated to preserving all buildings on the U.S. government's capital campus, comes this virtual tour that enables anyone to explore the historical buildings of Washington, D.C. The Architect's Virtual Capitol can be explored in a number of ways. In the Discover portion of this resource, visitors can check out a series of short videos addressing a range of topics, including the History of the United States Capitol, Sustainability at the Capitol, and Architects of the Capitol. Each video features embedded links that allow visitors to check out more information about a particular space in the capital. Visual learners, meanwhile, may want to explore this information via the Explore tab, which allows visitors to locate information about buildings on a three-dimensional map. Finally, the Learn section of this website organizes information about buildings and architects on a timeline. [MMB]

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re:sculpt is a blog dedicated to news and reviews in the world of sculpture. Authored by a team of artists and art critics from around the globe, the blog is affiliated with the International Sculpture Center, an organization founded in 1960 to "champion the creation and understanding of sculpture and its unique, vital contribution to society." Visitors can browse for current and past entries on this blog by categories including Materials and Processes, Business of Art, Public Art, and Book Reviews. Recent blog posts include an investigation on the fate of art supply stores in the era of online shopping; a profile on sculptor Robin Peck; and a report from Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, where performance artist Sophie Calle has launched a project that allows people to bury their secrets in a marble obelisk. re:sculpt is a multilingual blog; most entries are authored in English while a few are authored in Spanish. [MMB]

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PBS NewsHour offers this useful compilation of all NewsHour segments related to science. These videos, which include segments that appeared on the nightly news broadcast, can be be browsed by categories such as Innovations and Inventions and Basic Research. While these short snippets may offer a useful resource for a science or journalism classroom, they are also simply enjoyable (and informative) to browse on their own. As of this write up, recent video clips include an explanation on why planes are unable to fly during record hot temperatures; a series of short, mesmerizing videos that highlight jellyfish and their characteristics; and an exploration of "bumblebees," or beer created from yeasts found on bees. Many of these videos are accompanied by a full transcript or related articles along with additional photographs. [MMB]

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Historic postcards offer contemporary viewers a glimpse into both the physical environment of the past along with the aesthetic sensibilities of other eras. This collection of postcards that feature New York City bridges does just that. Curated by Shayna Marchese, this collection includes almost 100 postcards featuring photographs and illustrations of bridges in or near the Big Apple. Visitors may want to start by checking out the About tab, which includes short histories of both postcards as well as New York Cities bridges. From here, visitors can browse this collection by item or by geographic area (available in the Browse Collections tab). This online exhibit also features a Then and Now section that juxtaposes select postcards against temporary photographs of the bridges they depict. [MMB]

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Many web browsers were designed with casual or non-technical users in mind. Not so with the Vivaldi browser, which was designed to meet the needs of both heavy internet users and technical users. For example, it includes a bookmark manager built to easily sort and organize thousands of bookmarks. It also has support for mouse gestures for faster navigation. Vivaldi's tabbed browsing support includes a number of unique features. Tabs can be organized into 'stacks.' Multiple tabs can be tiled in a single window. Users who keep large numbers of tabs open may also appreciate Vivaldi's ability to place tabs in 'hibernation' to minimize their resource use. Under the hood, Vivaldi uses the same Blink rendering engine that Google Chrome does. Because of this, Vivaldi is compatible with Chrome extensions. Vivaldi is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. [CRH]

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Terminology is a comprehensive reference tool for the English language. It combines a dictionary, a thesaurus, and an internet-enabled research tool. Terminology's dictionary/thesaurus feature is usable offline. It contains clear, simple definitions along with root words, synonyms, antonyms, more/less specific words, audio pronunciations, and more. Terminology supports wildcard searching, maintains search history, offers spelling suggestions, and allows users to add notes to any term. When used with a network connection, Terminology's definitions are enriched with cross references to online sources like Wikipedia, IMDb, Google, and others. Terminology is available for macOS and iOS. The iOS version adds a "Look Up" option to text in all others apps. [CRH]

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