https://engineering.purdue.edu/ChE/News_and_Events/Publications/teaching_engineering/index.html

Purdue University has one of the strongest schools of engineering in the United States, and they remain committed to providing new and interesting materials about the art and science of teaching engineering to their students. Professors Phillip C. Wankat and Frank S. Oreovicz recently created this very helpful textbook to aid engineering educators in the classroom, and it is exciting to see that it is available online here for free. Visitors can download the entire book, or they can just browse around through some of the seventeen chapters. These chapters include “Problem Solving and Creativity”, “Lectures”, and “Learning Theories”. Additionally, there are several helpful appendices, such as “Obtaining an Academic Position” and “Sample Teaching Course Outline”. Overall, it’s an exemplary resource, and one that will be most useful to engineering educators. These materials can be used in a variety of engineering courses, including those that deal with chemical and mechanical engineering. [KMG]

http://www.maa.org/t_and_l/exchange/exchange.html

The Mathematical Association of America has developed the Innovative Teaching Exchange in order to facilitate the exchange of interesting and compelling teaching resources from a wide range of educators. As their site indicates, “The intention is to encourage more experimentation with more methods than the traditional lecture/questions method.” Currently, there are about a dozen articles available for consideration here, and they include titles such as “Flowcharting Proofs”, “Engaging Students via In-Class Worksheets”, and “In Search of the Elusive Matrix”. Each article contains information on how to use each exercise in the classroom, and these materials will hopefully inspire readers to submit their own classroom-tested modules or activities. [KMG]

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/index_en.htm

Some Scout Report readers might be wondering “How do Europeans feel about the euro?” or even “What do Europeans think about the effectiveness of different energy policies?” All of the answers to these questions (and many more) can be found on the European Commission’s Public Opinion site. The site contains the results from surveys conducted with Europeans on their attitudes towards alcohol, the role of the European Union in formulating security policy, and a number of other topics. Visitors will definitely want to make their way to the Eurobarometer Interactive Search System, which allows them to choose a subject or country which is of interest to them. Visitors should also take a look at their very fine “Qualitative Studies” section, which includes reports such as “The Future of Europe” and “Integrating Gender Mainstreaming into Employment Policies”. Needless to say, summaries of the reports are available in a wide range of languages, including Dutch, German, Italian, and French. [KMG]

http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/

Hosted by the UK Data Archive at the University of Essex, the Online Historical Population Reports comprise a rather impressive set of historical data that should be of interest to historians, demographers, and anyone with an inkling to learn more about various aspects of life in the British Isles from 1801 to 1937. All told, this online archive contains 200,000 pages of census and registration material. First-time visitors may wish to click on over to the “Help” section, as this area provides information about how to create an effective search and the use of various terms within each search. Along with the actual published census report and those on the registrar general, there are around 200 essays offered here authored by Edward Higgs and Matthew Woollard which cover topics like the cholera report of 1850 and the religious worship census of 1851. [KMG]

http://memory.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/html/stocks/stocks-home.html

By the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a number of African American musicians and bandleaders had garnered the attention of the music-going public, and names such as Eubie Blake and Scott Joplin remain familiar to this very day. This rather fine online collection offered by the Library of Congress’s Performing Arts division brings together a number of so-called “stock” arrangements for bands or small orchestras written by African Americans during that period. Visitors to the site should start by reading one of the four informative essays offered here, and then search through the actual music. There are over 206 pieces of music here, including “After the Cake Walk” from 1901 and the 1905 number, “Banana Man”. Additionally, visitors can read any number of composer and bandleader biographies. [KMG]

http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/

The very productive Earth Institute at Columbia University has a number of centers within its ambit, including The Center for International Earth Science. Their specialty happens to be on-line data and information management, along with spatial data integration and training and interdisciplinary research related to human interactions in the environment. From their homepage, visitors can learn more about some of their programs and projects, which include “Geoinformatics for Geochemistry” and their collection of climate change resources for the New York metropolitan area. Most users will also want to take a look at the “Educational Resources” area, as it contains information sheets that provide overviews of their online data resources, which include a wetlands database and thematic guides to human dimensions of global environmental change. [KMG]

http://www.academicworklife.org/

The world of higher education is very much in transition in the United States, and there has been a great deal of soul-searching and heated conversation regarding the increase in non-tenure track faculty, just to name one of many areas of pressing concern. A number of organizations and clearinghouses have been set up as of late to provide resources and commentary on these subjects, and the National Clearinghouse on Academic Worklife (NCAW) is one of them. Created in 2005, the NCAW is located at the University of Michigan’s Center for the Education of Women and they have created this online bibliographic record of materials that cover such subjects as benefits, tenure, career development, and business models in higher education. Visitors to the site can search the clearinghouse archive, or also look over the “Features” area, which includes recent additions to the NCAW database. Also, they may wish to suggest resources for inclusion in the database and sign up to receive the NCAW email newsletter. [KMG]

http://www.silencinggenomes.org/

While we may have complete genome sequences for humans and some animals, scientists are now entering the “post genome” era. The challenges of this era include determining the physiological functions of the thousands of new genes “for which little is known beyond their sequences.” The use of RNAi, along with bioinformatics, can provide scientists with the tools to determine these functions in living organisms. This interactive and informative site, created by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, allows visitors to learn about the ways in which RNAi functions. Visitors can make their way through the seven interactive features here, which include “Inducing RNAi by Feeding” and “Creating an RNAi Feeding Strain”. Additionally, the site has a “Resources” area which contains more materials on RNAi (such as interviews with scientists and such), along with videos of different strains in action. [KMG]