The Scout Report -- Volume 22, Number 10

Many educators, counselors, and parents are aware of the growing demand for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills. For those searching for STEM-based resources, STEM Career may be of interest. Developed by Rich Feller, professor of counseling and career development at Colorado State University, RSTEM Career serves as a "brokering site to support STEM advocates." Resources have been organized by audience, such as Students, Counselors, Educators, and Parents. For instance, Counselors will find resources sorted into three categories (Programs To Encourage Students To Participate In, Scholarships for Students, and Guides to Make You A Better Counselor In STEM), while the Educators will find five categories (Extracurricular Activities, Lesson Plans, Free Software, Classroom Resources, and Other Resources). Whatever sections readers choose to scout, there is an abundance of STEM-related material on the site. [CNH]

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This Teacher's Guide serves as a companion piece to Barbara Slate's instructional book, You Can Do a Graphic Novel. The guide may be used alongside the 2010 book at all levels of education, with a suggested lesson that spans six classroom periods, introduces students to the art of the graphic novel, then begins with basic explanations of the form of the graphic novel, the goals for the lesson, and an overview of what students will need (pencils and paper). Students will be introduced to the the fundamentals of the creative process, offered a number of tips for how to get the creative juices flowing, and then instructed on how to make up a story, how to fashion characters and plot, how to get writing, and finally how to layout the pages of a graphic novel. Along the way, students will learn about themselves and their world and develop important tools and skills that will apply well beyond the limits of the graphic novel. [CNH]

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The Journal of Probiotics & Health is an open access, online, peer-reviewed, scholarly health journal that is designed to be read by anyone with an interest in this important field, regardless of whether they belong to a major library system. Articles focus on probiotics, gastrointestinal infections, gut-microbiota, and the impact of microflora on digestive and overall health. Recent articles have explored the beneficial effects of bifidobacterium for chronic constipation, how lactobacillus pentosus strain S-PT84 and Vitamin B mixtures can enhance natural killer cells, and the influence on digestive health of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, found in fermented kefir. For readers fascinated by the intricacies of digestive health, this peer-reviewed and freely accessible journal will come as a welcome discovery. [CNH]

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The Utah Education Network (UEN) has assembled an exciting array of multimedia resources on its website. The content has been divided into seven categories: Pictures, ClipArt & Images; Videos, Movies & Streaming Resources; Multiple Media Types; Sounds, Audio & Music; PowerPoint & Multimedia Slideshow Resources; Search Engines for Resources; and Related Materials. Each category contains worthwhile finds. For example, the American Memory Project is part of the Pictures, ClipArt & Images collection. Here, readers may peruse the Library of Congress's resources on a range of collections, from advertising to women's history. Likewise, from the Multiple Media Types category, readers will find links to the NASA Image Exchange, the National Science Digital Library (NSDL), and American Rhetoric, each of which contains unique educational worlds. [CNH]

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Since 1988, POV has brought together over 400 documentaries that offer articulate and compelling narratives about contemporary social issues. On this page For Educators, the users will find more than 100 standards-aligned lesson plans, dozens of discussion guides, and a number of reading lists all assembled to compliment the PBS film series. For example, the materials that accompany the documentary, "Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case," include an overview of the lesson, objectives, subject areas for which the lesson might be used, and ten film clips, as well as a ten step activity that includes small groups in which students discuss activism in their own communities. There are also links to news stories and other Internet resources about Chinese activists and resources that help students understand different kinds of activism and what they mean in the political landscape. Other lessons focus on documentaries about mental illness, human trafficking, war news, the rituals of tea in various cultures, and numerous other topics. [CNH]

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This impressively organized site, which was designed by Lisa Korpics, a teacher at the Valley Central High School in Montgomery, New York, offers unit plans that take educators and their students through a crash course in sociology. The course begins with an Introduction to Sociology, then proceeds with an overview of sociological theories, before presenting sociological information about subcultures, countercultures, criminology, families, marriage, social movements, social structure, deviance, and more. Along the way, readings and notes root the discussion in historical examples, from Karl Marx to The Sociology of Breaking Bad. The course is aligned with Common Core, which can simplify its introduction into school systems that are integrating the government standards into their pedagogies. [CNH]

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The American Chemistry Society (ACS) has pulled together some valuable resources for high school chemistry teachers, Classroom Teaching Resources to Education Standards to Professional Development. Educators will find lesson plans on the Isolation of Phytochrome, the Development of Baking Powder, the Discovery of Fullerenes, and Man and Materials Through History, among other topics. An extensive list of tools and ideas related to "Green Chemistry" are also provided, including the ACS GCI Green Chemistry Pocket Guides and Beyond Benign, a site entirely dedicated doing chemistry in an earth-friendly manner. In addition, the two-hour NOVA special, "Hunting the Elements," in which David Pogue deconstructs and reconstructs the periodic table of elements, provides two full hours of educational fun for all ages. [CNH]

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Sumanas, Inc. was founded in 1994 with the express purpose of developing accurate high-impact interactive products for higher education. This section of biotechnology animations showcases some of their most developed work. Here readers will find freely accessible animations on such topics as "In Vitro Fertilization," "How a Pregnancy Test Works," and "What are Human Embryonic Stem Cells?" Each of the animations can be viewed with or without narration. For anyone who would like to better understand basic biotechnological tidbits, or for teachers looking for animations to illustrate particular points in their lessons, this site's animations may come as a welcome helping hand. [CNH]

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Map lovers will find much to appreciate in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Explorer, an exciting mapping project powered by Esri. To begin, readers may simply type in the location of the place they would like to explore. For example, entering "Ashland, Oregon" calls up a map of the small town on the northern border of California. Clicking on the map then pulls up a timeline featuring multiple historical maps that can be perused at the reader's leisure. In the case, of Ashland, maps from 1891, 1893, 1897, 1964, 1983, and 1996 show the developing town center and the roads and streets that, over the decades, have begun to snake out from downtown and occupy the nearby hillsides. The thousands of historical maps available on the site may all be downloaded free of charge. [CNH]

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Adam Smith is perhaps the most widely read and best remembered of the philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, that 18th century outpouring of scientific and intellectual advancements. His work The Wealth of Nations, which outlined principles of the free market, is often considered the first ever comprehensive treatment of modern economics. Interested readers will find much to appreciate in this Exhibition from the University of Glasgow, "Adam Smith in Glasgow," where they will find information on Smith's life as a student, a professor, quaestor of the library, and dean of the faculty. Each section offers access to original documents and pithy explanations of Smith's movement through the hierarchy of the University's hallowed halls. [CNH]

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The Atlantic, which was founded in 1857 by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Longfellow, and other transcendentalist intellectuals, is one of the most widely distributed bookish magazines in the country. The magazine's web presence is well-established, and readers may may be happy to note that the Technology section, which is updated multiple times a week, is a most reliable source for breaking news about the tech world. Recent articles have wondered if the driverless car could survive a fatal accident, whether planes will one day fly themselves, how illegal hackers recruit to their diabolical schemes, and have also included Scottish philosopher Kaveh Waddell's critique of the Silicon Valley, the "domination of information technology over human beings, and the subordination of people to a technological imperative." [CNH]

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The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars was established in 1968 as a think tank and presidential memorial with a goal toward bringing scholars and politicians together to put ideas into practice. In the Vietnam War digital archive, readers will find various "once-secret" historical materials from archives around the world: telegrams, minutes, discussion notes that date from the mid 1950s to the late 1970s, and more. Interestingly, most are drawn from Chinese and Albanian archives, offering a view of the developing conflict in Vietnam as seldom reported in the United States. For example, a memorandum from May 31, 1956 documents a conversation between Premier Zhou Enlai and Ambassador R.K. Nehru, as the two discuss the Korean ceasefire and the burgeoning situation in what was then called Indochina. Many of the documents are drawn from cables sent between representatives of Polish, Albanian, and other Soviet satellite representatives to Chinese and North Vietnamese officials. [CNH]

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The Frick Collection boasts one of the world's great art-related photoarchives. With over one million photographic reproductions of paintings, sculptures, and other works from around the world and across 16 centuries, the Photoarchive represents a great undertaking indeed. Lucky for readers, more than 57,000 of these images are available online. Here readers will find everything from sketches of late 19th century New York to portraits of great men to religious works and drawings of bicycles. Readers may like to begin by reading the History section, which provides an overview of the establishment and growth of the Photoarchive. Other tabs of interest include Discoveries in the Photoarchive, Exhibitions, Digital Photoarchive, and Holdings. With the digitization of the entire Photoarchive a strategic goal of the Frick, readers may be especially interested to note that nearly half of the 57,000 negatives digitized so far are accessible via the ARTstor Digital Collections. [CNH]

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The original series, "American Writers: A Journey Through History," aired on C-SPAN from March 2001 to July 2002 and explored the history of the United States through the lives and works of the writers who shaped the ideas and emotions of America's citizens. Episodes examined the writings of William Bradford, Abraham Lincoln, Lewis and Clark, Betty Frieden, James Baldwin, Jack Kerouac, Walter Lippmann, Ayn Rand, and many others. Spanning the time between the early 1600s and the late 20th century, and spaces from the Virginia colonies to the urban centers of industrialized West, these episodes use the thoughts, feelings, opinions, and passions of individual writers to explore the very nature of the the American psyche. Readers may view all videos from the series on this section of the C-SPAN website. With most episodes over two hours in length, the collection is sure to provide endless entertainment. [CNH]

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Although the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is primarily an activist group, the resources available on this page constitute an excellent introduction to the field of environmental justice. Put simply, environmental justice seeks to defend poor communities from the sorts of environmental toxins to which they have traditionally been subjected because of their inability to legally defend themselves. Readers may explore the issues of Global Warming, Energy, Air, Water, Oceans, and Health on this website, and scout such topics as U.S. Law & Policy, Urban Solutions, International Issues, and Transportation. For readers who are looking for an online primer on the topic environmental justice, this site for the NRDC will be a welcome resource. [CNH]

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On its "About" page, the Digitalarkivet (Digital Archives) of Norway states, "Everyone is welcome to use this government service for free." However, while much of the website is available translated into English, the majority of the digitized documents are in Norwegian, making the site of the most interest to those who are fluent in that language. There is a wealth of material for (bilingual) genealogists here: Censuses, Church books/Parish records, Seamen Rolls and Military Rolls, Deeds and Property Tax Records, and so on. The Digital Inn feature of the site includes materials that have been contributed by other individuals and organizations beyond the National Archives of Norway. A new exhibition that should be enjoyed by both Norwegian and non-Norwegians speakers, Find Your Gas Station, opened on February 25, 2016 and features close to 600 historical photos of Esso service stations throughout Norway. [DS]

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Whether it is Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, or one of the other multifarious iterations of cloud-based storage now available, most Internet users store at least some of their data far away from their home computers. That's no problem when the data is something innocuous like a grocery list or a batch of cat photos, but what about when the files are medical records, social security information, or other sensitive materials? Then, most experts agree, it's time to look at encryption services. Enter Viivo, a free encryption service that has been on the market for more than half a decade. Viivo is available for both Mac and Windows machines, as well iOS and Android mobile devices. It supports Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, and Google Drive. Downloading the service usually takes less than a minute. From there, users can begin to upload encrypted files to the cloud based service of their choice. [CNH]

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A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a secured network that allows users to share data remotely through public networks, all the while hiding sensitive information, such as your IP address and location, from websites, hackers, and advertisers. Tunnel Bear is one of the most attractive and user friendly VPNs on the market. Download takes less than a minute. From there, a honey pot appears on your computer's toolbar. Clicking the toggle switch turns the service on and off. As long as the switch is turned "on," the service is working to keep your connection private. For added benefit, you can also choose to access the Internet from servers in countries around the world. Most users will be satisfied with the free plan, but those who need more data may pay for the more advanced plans. [CNH]

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