The Scout Report -- Volume 24, Number 2

The Smithsonian Science Education Center offers this collection of nine interactive online games for elementary and middle school students. These games are designed to engage young learners with a range of topics relating to life, earth, space, and physical science. For example, in the Weather Lab, students are prompted to make weather forecasts based on information about ocean currents and air masses. When students make accurate predictions, they will view an animation of the predicted weather event. In Aquation: the Freshwater Access Game, students must figure out how to provide freshwater access to communities around the world. Some of these games require certain plugins, which are noted in each game description. All games are also available as a download in the App Store or Google Play. Each game is accompanied by a short description and labeled by subject and grade level. [MMB]

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The City University of New York Dominican Studies Institute has created First Blacks in the Americas: "the first digital bilingual platform devoted to disseminating the history of the early inhabitants of black-African ancestry of today's Dominican Republic, then a Spanish colony named La Espanola." This website, which is structured like an interactive, multimedia textbook, includes short essays accompanied by full citations for those interested in conducting further research, primary documents, maps, graphs, videos, and more. Topics addressed include the arrival of blacks in La Espanola, the history of black women in La Espanola, and resistance to slavery. Visitors may browse this resource by topic or by type of material in the resource section. In addition, the resources section includes a helpful timeline and a glossary of vocabulary featured in archival manuscripts. [MMB]

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Launched in 2005 by art historians Beth Harris and Steven Zucker, Smarthistory provides a wealth of resources for teaching and learning art history. One such resource is ARCHES, or the At Risk Cultural Heritage Education Series. This series offers a multimedia online textbook about issues surrounding the preservation of cultural heritage objects. In particular, this collection of short essays, images, and videos explains how important cultural artifacts, including monuments and artwork, are threatened by looting and trafficking. This series also grapples with the colonial legacy of major museums and issues of repatriation. Visitors may want to start by reading the beginner's guide, which provides a definition of cultural heritage and a history of laws and social norms regarding rights to cultural heritage objects. Visitors can also explore the series by endangered heritage subject (Americas, Europe and West Asia, Southeast Asia, Pacific Islands, Africa). This series may especially appeal to art history and anthropology instructors. [MMB]

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The University of Rochester's Robbins Library offers the Cinderella Bibliography: an extensive annotated bibliography of resources related to the famous fairytale and its many renditions and variations around the globe. In addition, this website offers a number of illustrations related to Cinderella, which collectively span two centuries. Visitors may want to start by reading the introduction, which explains the basic components of the Cinderella story and offers a glimpse into the diversity of how the tale has been presented around the world and throughout time. For example, in some versions, such as the Little Red Ox, the Cinderella character is a male. In another version, Cinderella leaves behind a nose ring, not a glass slipper, at the ball. Visitors can browse this bibliography by category title, such as Education materials, Modern children's editions and adaptations, and Musical compositions and dances. This bibliography offers an excellent one-stop-shop for students, scholars, and others interested in researching the ubiquitous fairytale. [MMB]

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The World Wealth & Income Database was launched in 2017 with the goal of, "providing open and convenient access to the most extensive available database on the historical evolution of the world distribution of income and wealth, both within countries and between countries." The database is the newest iteration of the World Top Income Database (WTID), which was launched in 2011 by economists Facundo Alvaredo, Tony Atkinson, Thomas Piketty, and Emmanuel Saez. WID.world contains data and infographics about dozens of countries, which visitors can explore in a variety of ways. In the worldview section, visitors can explore a number of statistics by manipulating an interactive infographic. These statistics include the average national income, average national wealth, and a variety of statistics about income and wealth distribution. Alternatively, visitors can explore data by country or by data indicator. Researchers will also want to check out the methodology section, which includes related published research papers. [MMB]

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From the Genetic Science Learning Center at the University of Utah comes this collection of educational resources about the use of models in scientific research and communication. These resources, which include illustrated essays, videos, and interactive activities, help learners understand how scientists can use models to understand natural phenomena and create public policy. Science instructors may be interested in using these materials to supplement existing curriculum. This collection is divided into three sections. The first two sections, Models and What you can do with models, are designed to help learners broadly understand the role of models in earth science. In the third section, Modeling water in the West, learners are invited to consider an authentic scenario: water allocation in the American West. One highlight of this section is a series of four online simulations, which invites learners to manage a watershed in four types of communities: suburban sprawl, agricultural, low impact development, and industrial city types. [MMB]

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For archivists, record managers, and others interested in keeping abreast of efforts to archive born-digital and digitized materials, the Society of American Archivists Electronic Records Section blog is a must-read. Launched in January 2015, this regularly-updated blog provides information about training opportunities, conferences, publications, and issues of interest in the field of archives and records management. In addition, this blog features reflections on new tools and ongoing conversations in the world of electronic archives and records. For example, in one recent post, published on December 19, 2017, Laurie Allen and Stewart Varner reflect on partnerships between digital scholarship librarians and archives/special collections professionals. In another recent post, the authors of the University of California Guidelines for Born-Digital Archival Description explain how they created their guidelines and how archivists can access these guidelines. This blog is authored by a number of contributors, offering a diversity of voices and perspectives. [MMB]

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For teachers of adult English Language Learners (ELLs), the J. Paul Getty Museum offers this collection of lesson plans designed to teach English vocabulary and language skills through art. These lesson plans were originally part of a workshop series at the Getty. Instructors can browse these lesson plans by level: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Each lesson centers on an item (or a number of items) on display at the Getty. For example, the beginning lesson, "Work", allows students to examine Lewis Hine's photograph Empire State Building and Louis-Leopold Boilly's Three Young Artists in a Studio and write sentences based on these works. In the series of advanced lessons, students look at a variety of portraits and write an imagined interview with the subject of one of these portraits. Each lesson is accompanied by student handouts and digital images of featured artwork. While these are designed specifically for adult English Language Learners, many of these lessons could also be used in K-12 art or language arts classrooms. [MMB]

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English Heritage is a British charity organization dedicated to preserving historic sites in Great Britain, including relics from the prehistoric, Roman, and medieval eras. For those who want to do a bit of British exploring from afar, English Heritage also offers Story of England, an illustrated tour of Great Britain from the prehistoric era to the present. Visitors are invited to explore the Story of England by era (organized into a timeline at the top of the webpage) and by theme (e.g., power and politics, religion, daily life). Once visitors select an era and theme, they can view photographs, artifacts, artwork, and more from that particular era, accompanied by a short essay. For instance, when one selects, "Gregorians" and, "Daily Life," they are invited to check out four illustrated essays related to this theme, including an essay about the eccentric writer Philip Thicknesse and an essay about the Wellington boots. The Story of England offers a delightful way to learn tidbits of fascinating British history. [MMB]

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The Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network and the environmental non-profit organization Manomet have created this stunning story map dedicated to the migratory patterns of the semipalmated sandpiper. In the summer of 2016 at Coats Island in Hudson Bay, a research team tagged a number of these sandpipers with geolocators in order to learn more about the teeny bird's annual journey across North America, over open-ocean into Brazil, and back north to Hudson Bay. This story map combines gorgeous photography, maps, and videos to demonstrate how the semipalmated sandpipers survived on their trek and to highlight threats to the bird's habitat. Visitors can explore this story map in English, Spanish, or Dutch. [MMB]

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Jazz fans will recognize the artwork of Jim Flora (1914-1998), which adorned the album covers of Columbia Records and RCA Victor during the 1940s and 1950s. These records included works by Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman. In addition, Flora authored and illustrated children's books and contributed illustrations to magazines. On this website, visitors can learn more about Flora and explore some of his work. In the galleries section, Flora's artwork is organized by category, including Woodcuts and New album covers. In addition, this section includes a page dedicated to, "Not! Flora Covers," which features, "a gallery of record covers that Jim Flora did NOT illustrate, presented herewith to help you settle arguments." Jim Flora fans will also want to check out the site's blog, which features rarities and newly-discovered work by Jim Flora. [MMB]

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Every month, the American Museum of Natural History hosts SciCafe, inviting experts from all scientific fields to share their research. Many of these experts are AMNH staff. On the museum's YouTube channel, visitors can watch lectures featured during previous SciCafe events. As of this write-up, the collection contains 38 lectures - most are approximately 30 minutes in length. These lectures include a discussion about the ethics of reversing extinction by AMNH curator Ross MacPhee; an explanation of the role that plants played in human evolution by anthropologist Fatimah Jackson; and an exploration of the enduring question, "Are we alone in the universe?" by astrophysicist Lisa Kaltenegger. [MMB]

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If you are a book-lover with an ever-expanding "to-read" list, then this podcast is for you. Hosted by Andrew Cunningham and Craig Getting, Overdue is dedicated to, "the books you've been meaning to read." Each hour-long episode is dedicated to a single title and selections range from classics, contemporary award winners, non-fiction, young adult books, cult favorites, and even inescapable bestsellers (including Fifty Shades of Grey). During each episode, Cunningham and Getting informally discuss each novel and offer their perspectives on the book's strengths and weaknesses. Most of these episodes are best enjoyed if listeners have already read the books - listeners are warned at the beginning of each episode that discussions usually contain some plot spoilers. Fortunately, book fans can browse archives of over 200 past episodes. Cunningham and Getting have helpfully compiled a few of their favorite episodes in the "New listener?" section. Listeners can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or RSS. [MMB]

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St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota is well-renowned for its music education program, including its choirs, orchestra, bands, and dance program. On St. Olaf's website, music lovers from around the world can watch recordings of past musical and dance performances at the college, including student, faculty, and guest performances. Some of these performances are accompanied by short introductory comments. In the comments for the 2017 Fall Tour Home Concert, St. Olaf orchestra conductor Steven Amundson explains why he selected a particular piece for the performance. Each recording is also accompanied by a full concert program. Visitors can browse these archived performances by year. [MMB]

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In 1963, the Universite de Moncton opened in New Brunswick, Canada. The university's visual art program ushered in a contemporary art movement in the region of Acadia. This online exhibit by the Virtual Museum of Canada is dedicated to twenty prominent Arcadian contemporary artists, including printmakers, sculptors, photographers, and painters. For each featured artist, visitors can read a short biography and listen to a series of short video interviews. A sample question is, "Does your everyday environment stimulate your creativity? In what way?" In addition, visitors can view photographs of work by each artist, accompanied by information about each work. This website offers a glimpse into the Acadian art scene and a way to learn about artistic processes of many fascinating contemporary artists. [MMB]

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If you're looking for inspiration from the graphic sensibilities of the late-nineteenth century, this digital collection by Cornell University Library provides it. As more and more manufactured goods became available to American consumers after the Civil War, producers of these goods looked for ways to promote their products, and trade cards - "small pasteboard cards colorfully printed with a company's name, address, and an eye-catching image to stick in the customer's mind" - were the answer. Some examples of these eye-catching images included a chef poised to step out of a pickle, holding a tureen and a can of Heinz tomato soup. Other trade cards on display advertise a wide variety of consumer products, such as hair tonic, Pabst beer, baking powder, and tinned corn beef. This online exhibition is equipped with an image viewer that allows visitors to zoom in on selected cards. The trade cards are from the Waxman Collection, donated to Cornell University by Nahum (Nach) Waxman and Maron Waxman in 1915. Nach Waxman is an alumnus of Cornell, and the founder of Kitchen Arts & Letters, a New York City bookstore specializing in cookbooks and publications related to food and drink. [DS]

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Userscripts are small JavaScript programs that can be run in a browser to customize a website. They are a type of augmented browsing technology, allowing users to add their own personal improvements to the sites they visit. For example, a user could add movie review information (from Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, etc) to the information displayed by their streaming services. Sites like greasyfork.org and openuserjs.org contain large catalogs of customizations that users have built. Tampermonkey is a userscript manager that can find and install userscripts, execute them, and keep them up to date. On Tampermonkey's dashboard, users can see which userscripts they've installed, which sites they apply to, and what permissions each script requires. Libraries of scripts can be exported to Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive and shared with other users. Tampermonkey is available for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Safari, and Opera as well as a number of other browsers. [CRH]

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Standard Notes is a simple, secure, open-source note-taking application. Notes can be synchronized across devices using end-to-end industry standard AES-256 encryption. In addition to the public sync servers, more technical users may also opt to run their own. Instructions are provided for setting up such a server on Amazon EC2, Docker, or Heroku. Standard Notes provides a backup feature that allows users to download the entire content of their account. Tools are available to convert these backup files into folders of plain-text documents so that users can easily migrate to another system. Standard Notes is available on the desktop for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Mobile versions are available for iOS and Android. A web interface is also available that works in any modern browser. Source code for all the versions of Standard Notes is available on GitHub. [CRH]

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Almost five years after we originally featured the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries, we continue to be impressed this website, which allows visitors to explore how county boundaries have shifted throughout history. Our favorite feature? The interactive map that accompanies each featured state.

So you'd like to know the boundaries of Washington's King County in the early twentieth century? Or perhaps you'd like to know more about the shape of Nassau County in New York back in the nineteenth century? The Atlas of Historical County Boundaries can provide you such details. The project is housed at the William M. Scholl Center for American History and Culture at The Newberry Library in Chicago and it was completed in 2010. The atlas includes such features as all boundary changes in states and counties, non-county areas, separate map or polygon files for every different county configuration, and lots of other helpful features. Users can get started by clicking on different states of interest and just exploring as they see fit. It's also useful to read over, "Using the Atlas," for additional assistance. Finally, visitors can also look at the publications section for more information on the source material for these county boundaries.

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