The Scout Report -- Volume 23, Number 32

In February 1623, a group of Dutch officials accused a team of English merchants and Japanese mercenaries of conspiring to capture a castle on Amboyna, a small island in what is now part of Indonesia. The island was central to the booming spice trade, which had fueled an increasingly acrimonious rivalry between the British and the Dutch. In a subsequent trial, Dutch officials extracted confessions from a number of Japanese soldiers (who had been employed by the Dutch East India Company to protect Dutch interests) and employees of the British East India Company, usually under the duress of torture, and sentenced them to death. What really happened at the trial and what can this incident tell us about imperial relations during the seventeenth century? This resource created by historian Adam Clulow of Monash University and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University allows scholars and students to explore these questions and more via online exhibits, primary documents (e.g. paintings, legal documents, and letters), and a detailed timeline of events. There is also a teacher's guide for high school and university instructors interested in incorporating the Amboyna Conspiracy Trial into their classroom. [MMB]

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)'s Science Ambassador Fellowship connects science educators with CDC subject matter experts to create relevant, timely lesson plans on a range of public health issues. Educators can browse these lesson plans, which align with Next Generation Science Standards, by theme: Disease Control and Prevention, Epidemiology, Outbreak Investigations, Preparedness and Response, and Surveillance. Within each section, lesson plans are organized by grade level (middle school or high school) and specific issue. In one lesson, high school students learn about the role of surveillance during an E. coli outbreak. In another lesson, middle school learners learn about the role of vaccination in preventing a disease outbreak via an interactive exercise that models the concept of herd immunity. All lesson plans include related materials and graphic organizers so that instructors can implement them into their classrooms with ease. [MMB]

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On social media channels, users are increasingly likely to encounter bots, or accounts that mimic human behavior. These bots create the illusion of public opinion, and many social media users are unable to distinguish between an actual Twitter user, for instance, and a bot. In fact, a team of computer scientists have created a "Botometer" to help users ascertain whether or not an account they follow on Twitter is likely to be a bot. This lesson plan from PBS NewsHour Extra is designed to teach students to how to recognize bots online and critically reflect on how bots are shaping political discourse around the world. The lesson centers on a short but informative NewsHour video about the recent history of Twitter Bots and what computer scientists are doing to uncover them. While this lesson is aimed at middle and high school students, it may also be of interest to those who teach computer literacy in settings such as public libraries or adult education classrooms. [MMB]

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Previously featured in The Scout Report in 2002, PANGAEA continues to be an extensive resource for earth and environmental scientists. This open access library aims to archive, publish, and distribute georeferenced data from earth system research. The vast majority of these datasets, collected from all around the world, are freely available for researchers and instructors to download and use. As of this write up, PANGAEA features 259 projects and well over 350,000 datasets. Visitors are invited to search this extensive collection by Topic (e.g. Oceans, Lithosphere, Chemistry, and Paleontology) or via Map. With this last feature, after selecting a continent, users may further narrow results by specific location, author, publication year, etc. Visitors can also conduct a keyword search. PANGAEA is currently maintained by a team of data managers, project managers, and IT specialists and is a member of the International Council for Science (ICSU) World Data System and the World Meteorological Organisation's (WMO) Information System. [MMB]

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The National Portrait Gallery of London offers this collection of six interactive activities designed to engage elementary level learners with art, history, mathematics, and literature. This amusing and educational collection includes activities created by the Gallery as well as some created by other organizations. In one such activity, Primary: Great Fire, created by the Museum of London, young students learn about the Great Fire of London and its impact through a computer game. In another activity, Canvas and Stretcher, students explore mathematical patterns by examining shapes and colors that appear in famous British paintings. Visitors interested in Tudor and Georgian beauty standards will want to check out History of Hair and Beauty, which offers a step-by-step make-up and hair tutorial. [MMB]

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Scholastic offers this unit plan designed to engage middle school learners with the art and history of haiku. Three multi-day lesson plans comprise the unit, which should take about eight class periods to complete. In the first lesson, students start a KWL chart and collaborate to conduct internet research on the history of haiku and its connection to samurai culture. In the second set of lessons, students read and analyze a variety of haikus, learning about the diversity of the genre and reflecting on the moods and emotions that this form of poetry can invoke in readers. Finally, students write and present their own haikus. On this page, middle school language arts instructors will find complete lesson plans along with graphic organizers and suggestions for further reading. [MMB]

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Portuguese is the fifth most widely spoken language in the world, with over 260 million speakers not only in Portugal and Brazil, but also in Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, and other countries. King's College of London offers this collection of websites, podcasts, grammar guides, online dictionaries, and more for readers interested in learning Portuguese. While some of these resources are available only to King's College students, many are freely available to the general public. Visitors may browse these resources by competency level (e.g. Beginning, Intermediate, or Advanced) or by type of resource (e.g. Dictionary, Podcast and Videos, or Games). Each resource is accompanied by a short description. The Media section provides links to Portuguese-language media organized by country so that advanced learners can practice their reading skills by exploring news publications from Angola, Brazil, Mozambique, or Portugal. [MMB]

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Hosted by public historian Fred Dews, The Brookings Cafeteria is a podcast "about ideas and the experts who have them." This recent episode of the Brookings Cafeteria, released on August 4, 2017, may especially be of interest to those who work in community colleges or are involved in educational policy. Dews talks to Elizabeth Mann, a fellow in the Brown Center on Education Policy, about her work connecting community colleges with employers. This thirty-minute conversation is accompanied by a number of related resources from the Brookings Institute, including a toolkit Mann developed to help build successful community college-employer relations. In addition, visitors will find a number of resources from other educational research groups, including the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Columbia University's Teacher's College and the National Center for Education and Statistics. [MMB]

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From the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews comes Jewish Warsaw, a powerful online exhibit that allows visitors around the world to learn about the history of Warsaw through the eyes of historical and contemporary Jewish individuals. This three-part project utilizes Google Maps, archival material from the POLIN Museum, and original comics. In the first part, visitors learn about the life and work of Janusz Korczak via an interactive timeline and historic map of Warsaw that allows users to visit important sites in Korczak's life. Tragically, Korczak, who founded a children's magazine and directed an orphanage, was murdered at Treblinka extermination camp in 1942. Next, in Stories and Sketches, visitors can explore original comics, authored by Monika Powalisz and drawn by Jacek Michalski, that tell the story of nine individuals "who greatly influenced the social and cultural life" of Warsaw. By clicking on a series of links embedded in the comics, visitors can view related materials and learn more. Finally, Past and Present reveals three virtual tours of Warsaw: Common History: 1414-1939, Holocaust: 1939-1945, and Our Varshe: 1945-2016. Historical documents, sketches, photographs, and video clips are incorporated into the tours. [MMB]

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The University of Iowa Libraries is home to this delightful digitized collection of illustrations that appeared in Curtis's Botanical Magazine during the late eighteenth century. The magazine was launched in 1787 by William Curtis, a botanist who worked at Kew Royal Gardens. Curtis published the magazine until his death in 1800. The magazine continues today as the Kew Magazine. In this collection, botany enthusiasts can explore over 200 images that appeared in the first issues of this magazine when it was edited by Curtis himself. All of these illustrations were created by Sydenham Edwards. Each image is labeled by the name of the plant it depicts, and the collection is organized alphabetically. When visitors select an image, they can see all classification information about the plant, along with the illustration's year of publication. Visitors are also able to use a zoom function to explore Edwards's gorgeous illustrations in detail. [MMB]

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Justin Schmidt is an entomologist with a job that few would envy: he classifies the level of pain of insect stings on a scale that is colloquially referred to as the Schmidt Sting Pain Index. As part of his research, Schmidt has experienced no fewer than 1,000 stings in his lifetime. In this fascinating article from Atlas Obscura, visitors can learn more about Schmidt's work and explore a detailed chart of his Pain Index. This chart shows thirty insects and their ranking from 1 (least painful) to 4 (most painful). Each insect is also accompanied by a colorful description. For example, the Iridescent Cockroach Hunter is described as "Itchy with a hint of sharpness. A single stinging nettle pricked your hand." In contrast, the Red Paper Wasp, which ranks as a formidable 3, is described as "Caustic and burning. Distinctly Bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut." [MMB]

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"Folk art is a reflection of society as seen through the eyes of artists whose perceptions are sometimes traditional and conventional - sometimes unruly, and even wild." So writes the Canadian Museum of History, host of this online exhibit that highlights Quebec folk art from the eighteenth century through today. This exhibit allows visitors to explore the diversity of folk art through both themed galleries and artist profiles. For example, the Traditional Approaches gallery features a range of works that employ traditional artistic methods. These include sculptures, a hand-crafted violin case, and nativity scenes created each December in the village of Saguenay. Meanwhile, the World According To... section features quotes and artwork by folk artists with contrasting philosophies. Another highlight of this online exhibit is the Tribute to Nettie Covey Sharpe, where readers will find biographic information about the women who collected and curated over 1,000 pieces of Quebec folk art. [MMB]

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Michael Twitty is a culinary/cultural historian, a chef, and an interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg's Peyton Randolph kitchen. Twitty recently appeared on NPR's On Point to discuss his latest book, The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African-American Culinary History in the Old South. and his views on antebellum southern history. In this interview he explains how enslaved African-Americans created contemporary American southern cuisine. For example, Twitty describes the roles of James Hemings, the enslaved chef of Thomas Jefferson, and Hercules, the enslaved chef of George Washington, in creating a cuisine that blended techniques and ingredients from European and Afro-Virginian cultures. This cuisine might be considered proto-soul food; both chefs made collard greens, and Hemmings made a macaroni pie that was not entirely unlike macaroni and cheese. Twitty explains that, in his mind, soul food can be defined as "memory cuisine of the great-grandchild of enslaved people." Interested readers can listen to the entire conversation here and check out a number of related resources, including some of Twitty's recipes and his 2016 TED talk about culinary justice. [MMB]

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art is home to almost 12,000 pieces of Islamic art, created between the seventh and nineteenth centuries. RumiNations is The Met's blog dedicated to this art collection. Here, visitors can find detailed descriptions, analyses, and histories of these works. For example, one recent post explores an illustrated manuscript for Farid al-Din 'Attar's The Conference of the Birds, "one of the most adored masterpieces of Islamic literature." Another post discusses the Company School paintings that emerged from late eighteenth century India and blended aesthetic techniques and conventions from the Mughal Empire with European conventions. The Met currently has a special exhibit of Company School paintings, which will run through October 1, 2017. Readers will also find an interview with printmaker Zarina Hashmi, whose work is featured in a 2017 Met exhibition. [MMB]

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As folks prepare for the the August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse, Scientific American offers this interactive map where visitors may explore when each country in the world will experience a solar eclipse over the next 150 years. This map is accompanied by a handy diagram that explains the difference between various kinds of eclipses, including total, annular, and hybrid, which are all classified as "central eclipses." On the global map, visitors can view the paths of future solar eclipses and zoom in on a country of interest. The paths of these eclipses are color coded to identify the kind of eclipse they represent and labeled by the year they will appear. [MMB]

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It can be frustratingly difficult to send large files over the internet using email or instant messaging. Many email providers impose attachment size limitations. In part, they do this because the email system was not designed to move large quantities of data and often does not perform well when forced to do so. Many instant messaging systems were designed with large file transfers in mind, but these transfers are often thwarted by firewalls. Firefox Send is a new and easy-to-use solution to this problem. It leverages the encryption support in modern browsers to encode files before upload to Mozilla's servers. When the upload is complete, users receive a download URL that they may share over IM, email, etc. These URLs include the encryption key necessary to decode the file, but they place it in the 'fragment' section of the URL which is never sent to the server. Mozilla's servers will delete their encoded copy of the data after one download or after 24 hours. Source code for Firefox Send is available on github, allowing more technical users to host their own Send servers. [CRH]

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So much news and information is available online that it can be difficult to keep up. NewsBlur is a personal news reader that aggregates stories from multiple sites into a single summary page. This summary page is updated in real time as new stories become available. Users may train NewsBlur by highlighting stories of particular interest or hiding those that are less interesting. This training data will then be used to automatically highlight or hide future stories. For example, this feature can be used to select only some authors from a multi-author weblog. NewsBlur is available on the web, as an iOS app, and as an Android app. It also supports integration with other feed reader software like Reeder, ReadKit, Unread, and others. Users on NewsBlur's free tier may monitor up to 64 sites. Premium accounts can monitor unlimited sites and have some additional features. [CRH]

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