Research and Education
http://docott.com/files.141/screencasts/
Dr. Mark Ott, a professor at Jackson Community College in Wyoming, has created a set of compelling screencasts and accompanying audio tracks that are designed to complement his general chemistry lectures. Visitors can look over these materials at their leisure, and they will find very well-thought out lessons that cover such topics as unit conversion, molecular formulae, balancing chemical equations, and ionic and covalent bonding. All of these materials are lucid and might be used both by students who are becoming more acquainted with the world of chemistry, or by educators who might be seeking to assist their students in the learning process. These learning modules are available here in either the Flash format or via Google video. [KMG]
http://www.accd.edu/sac/slac/ppointshows/math_0300/math_0300_review.htm
A number of community colleges across the United States have been actively working on creating helpful online tutorials and educational guides to a variety of subjects. Created by the staff at the Student Learning Assistance Center at San Antonio College, this site offers a set of online presentations and exercises that review topics such as whole numbers, integers, fractions, decimals, and statistical measurement. For each of these topics, users will find a slideshow overview and a set of short exercises designed to make sure that students understand the material. Additionally, visitors can click on the “Mathematics handouts” section to examine worksheets that cover the concepts of beginning algebra, exponents, and other more advanced mathematical subjects. [KMG]
http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/photos-social-museum.html
In the early decades of the twentieth century, a number of academics, social welfare advocates, and muckrakers became interested in the living conditions of recently arrived immigrants to the United States. One such person was Professor Francis Greenwood Peabody of Harvard University. In 1903, he founded the Social Museum, which was established “to promote investigations of modern social conditions and to direct the amelioration of industrial and social life.” For the next thirty years, Peabody and his colleagues at the museum worked on assembling a large collection of photographs, publications and reports related to the international social reform movement. At this site, visitors can browse through the photograph collection, which includes themes such as “charity”, “housing”, and “education”. Visitors will also want to browse through some of Peabody’s own publications, including his influential work, “The Approach to the Social Question: An Introduction to the Study of Social Ethics”. [KMG]
Since the rise of interest in social history in the United States, a number of academics and public citizens have remained committed to preserving the voices and perspectives of everyday people. The Southern Oral History Program (SOHP) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a rather fine example of such a commitment. Founded in 1973, the SOHP has recorded over 2900 interviews with people from all walks of life, and their website contains a generous sampling of this material. First-time visitors may wish to start by watching “Spoken Memories”, which provides a nice introduction to the history and work of SOHP. Afterwards, they can sample some of the online audio archives, or listen to the “Interview of the Month” feature. For those who wish to read as they listen, the interviews are complemented by transcripts in several different file formats. Visitors should also feel welcome to browse through the online finding aid to the SOHP’s collection and offer their own feedback or inquiries. [KMG]
Understanding earthquakes is a complex process, and the Mid-America Earthquake Center is one of three national earthquake engineering research centers set up to work on a variety of approaches to a broad set of related scientific concerns. Based at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Center consists of a consortium of nine core institutions and is funded by the National Science Foundation. The Center’s primary work is within four areas, including information technology and consequence-based risk management frameworks. Recognizing that they serve a broad range of visitors to their website, the Center has established a number of informative introductions on their homepage for the general public, potential industry partners, members of the press, and K-12 educators. While a number of visitors may be interested in their technical reports and software packages, most visitors will want to look over the graduate and undergraduate teaching modules, which will be of great use to educators in the engineering and geophysical sciences and their students. Additionally, the Center’s site provides access to a number of informative webcasts, including presentations on seismic performances of bridges. [KMG]
Under the banner of “Engaging Citizens, Empowering Communities”, the Eurasia Foundation is a non-profit organization supported by the United States Agency for International Development. Incorporated in 1992, the Eurasia Foundation has made over $335 million in grants to countries in the region, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova, and Georgia. In general, the Foundation works within three broad mandate areas, including private enterprise development, public administration and policy and civil society. Visitors are invited to learn about their activities on the website, and they may do so by browsing by geographical region, or by looking within the “Publications” area. This area contains annual reports, news briefs, and feature reports, which include recent titles such as “Opening the Georgian Military” and “Promoting the Non-Profit Sector in the Pamirs”. [KMG]
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/lamapped/
Sometimes maligned, often misunderstood, the City of Angels occupies a healthy chunk of Southern California real estate which has been the subject of thousands of thematic maps, dating back to the time of the first European explorers who began to wander around the area some five centuries ago. Recently, the Library of Congress and the Ira Gershwin Gallery collaborated to present a collection of historical maps of the region culled from the collections of the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division. For those who were unable to visit the in situ exhibit, those maps are presented here for the pleasure of the web-browsing public. There are a number of gems among their number, including a composite map plate of the Baja Peninsula from the 17th and 18th centuries, along with a 1906 map of oil fields located right in the city. Visitors can zoom in and out on each map, a feature that will come in handy when examining the 1937 Starland map which features the locations of various Hollywood stars. [KMG]
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/FRUS/
With the very official title of “Foreign Relations of the United States” (FRUS), this important United States government series serves as the official documentary historical record of major foreign policy decisions. Produced by the State Department’s Office of the Historian, many of these printed volumes have been digitized and placed online here as part of the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections project. Working with collaborators at the University of Illinois at Chicago, this archive includes those volumes published from 1861 to the year 1960. It is easy to search through the volumes, and visitors may also want to just browse through different volumes at their leisure. Users should also be mindful that the organization of FRUS, while generally chronological, does not always correspond to the dates of documentary history. Fortunately, each volume has a subject and author index available for consultation. Students of political science, United States history, and international relations will find this website indispensable. [KMG]
