The Scout Report -- Volume 27, Number 43

Deaf people often face steeper barriers to success in college and employment than hearing people. The National Deaf Center on Postsecondary Outcomes (NDC) exists to close these educational and employment gaps by supporting deaf students as they leave high school. This site offers free, useful resources that will be valuable to deaf students and their families, and to college administrators and faculty who work with deaf students. The Home page has quick links to key resources organized by target audience, such as online classes, employment and referral services, inspirational student stories, community engagement tools, and research and data. Digging deeper into the offerings, students can click on "Game" in the menu bar at the top of the page to find Deafverse (featured in the 04-23-2021 Scout Report), a "choose-your-own-adventure online game created just for deaf teenagers." Professional educators will want to explore the "Learn" tab to find free online short courses (which can be taken for CEUs or CRC clock hours), including "Deaf 101," "Teaching Deaf Students Online," and "Designing Summer Programs for Deaf Youth," among others. The "Resources" tab links to a searchable list of all the materials available. The NDC is funded by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA). The center is located at the University of Texas at Austin and directed by Carrie Lou Garberoglio. [MJZ]

Comment on or rate this resource

Given that the effects of climate change - wildfires, flooding, stronger hurricanes, more frequent droughts - are already being felt in our lives, what can our societies do to stave off even more extreme consequences? From The Economist (previously featured in the 03-25-2016 Scout Report), To a Lesser Degree is an eight-part podcast series on "the technologies, the adaptation and the politics needed to address extreme climate change." With hosts Vijay Vaitheeswaran, Catherine Brahic, and Oliver Morton, each episode explores a particular aspect of climate change through conversations with expert guests and journalists from the magazine. For instance, the October 11, 2021 episode "Going in reverse" included a discussion with Nathalie Seddon on carbon storage and a visit to an Icelandic carbon capture facility. As of this writing, episodes have tackled priorities for avoiding devastating climate change ("The challenge"), the efficacy of personal behavioral changes ("Best behaviour"), and how to fund climate change mitigation efforts ("Paying for it"). Readers can listen to the series on the page linked above or find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google, Overcast, or other podcatchers. [MJZ]

Comment on or rate this resource

Rural school districts in the U.S. face persistent challenges in finding and keeping qualified teachers. This 30-minute documentary, produced by the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest and Detroit Public Television, explores "research on teacher preparation and recruitment across the country," and "actions that state and local education leaders are taking to recruit and retain teachers." The documentary features conversations with expert researchers, lawmakers, school district administrators, and teachers, and highlights programs such as Central Michigan University's teacher education program and the Teacher Academy of Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District. Although the documentary focuses on Michigan, it will surely be relevant for community members, educators, and policymakers outside of the Wolverine State. The documentary is available to view on YouTube, and the description on that page includes links to a viewing guide with discussion questions and to REL Midwest's website, where visitors can learn about the organization's applied research and training efforts. [MJZ]

Comment on or rate this resource

Children across the globe have experienced the COVID-19 pandemic - and remediation efforts such as school closures, community lockdowns, and social distancing - in vastly different ways. These video diaries from UNICEF feature children from seven countries - South Africa, India, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the U.S., Iraq, and Italy - sharing their hopes, fears, challenges, and joys during the early stages of the pandemic. For example, Saira, a 6-year-old from India, shares how she keeps busy with arts and crafts, birdwatching, and music. Muna, a 10-year-old from Yemen, shares the experience of living through the pandemic in a refugee camp. Visitors can find these and other video diaries embedded in the page linked above. For further viewing, users can click on "Stay Home Diaries playlist" at the bottom of the page to be taken to a YouTube playlist, which features even more video diaries and links to related content from UNICEF. [MJZ]

Comment on or rate this resource

HistoricPlacesLA is an inventory of Los Angeles's "architecturally significant buildings and places of social importances, as well as historic districts, bridges, parks, and streetscapes." This online tool was created using data from SurveyLA, through a collaboration between the City of Los Angeles and the Getty Conservation Institute. These survey data have been integrated with other resources and processed using Arches, an open-source geospatial software, to create a searchable cultural heritage inventory of the region. Visitors can find resources two ways: through the "Map View" or the "Search" in the menu at the top of the page. The site offers ample search tips for getting started and some featured searches, such as "Modernism in LA," "Pre-1900 Los Angeles," and "Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monuments," which includes Grauman's Chinese Theater. The featured search "The Entertainment Industry" includes landmarks such as one of Liberace's houses and the Palomino Club, where country music stars such as Patsy Cline, Johnny and June Cash, Merle Haggard, Gram Parsons, and Jerry Lee Lewis played until it closed in 1995. [DS]

Comment on or rate this resource

Educators and folk culture specialists will want to check out the Journal of Folklore and Education (JFE), an open-access, peer-reviewed annual journal published by Local Learning: The National Network for Folk Arts in Education. Using ethnographic methods and frameworks, the journal "taps the knowledge and life experience of students, their families, community members, and educators," providing a forum for "community-based teaching, learning, and cultural stewardship." Each volume of JFE explores how teachers, students, and folk artists tackle complex issues through the lens of cultural analysis. For instance, the 2021 volume features articles such as "The Urban Art Mapping Project: A Discussion of Street Art Preservation and Antiracism," which explores the global reach of ephemeral urban street art; and "Written in Beads: Storytelling as Transmission of Haudenosaunee Culture," which relates the experiences of a beadwork artist and her connection to tradition. From the page linked above, interested readers can use the Browse drop-down menu to navigate all volumes of the journal, each of which can be downloaded in its entirety as a PDF. [MJZ]

Comment on or rate this resource

The exhibit Notable Folklorists of Color: Remembering Our Ancestral Legacies was first shown at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Folklore Society (AFS). Curated by Phyllis M. May-Machunda and Olivia Cadaval, the exhibit "highlights 25 scholars of color, ancestors whose significant contributions expanded research in folkloristics and laid a foundation for folkloristic scholarship by people of color in communities of color." From the page linked above, visitors can click the name or photo of any of the 25 folklorists to learn about each individual's biography and notable achievements. For instance, the page commemorating Zora Neale Hurston discusses her time as the first African American student at Barnard College, her studies with the anthropologist Franz Boas at Columbia University, and her folklore collection Mules and Men and novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. At the bottom of the page, visitors can click the purple boxes to read the introduction to the exhibit or learn about its history. AFS is a professional network of folklorists that manages publications such as the Journal of American Folklore, in addition to sponsoring folklore projects, initiatives, and prizes. [MJZ]

Comment on or rate this resource

Internet folklore is flourishing, and one of its most popular and esoteric expressions is the creation of memes. The website Know Your Meme is dedicated to documenting memes and other viral phenomena, and for those of us who have a hard time keeping up with internet culture, it provides the necessary context to understand what various memes mean and where they came from. From the page linked above, visitors can use the Search bar at the top of the page to query a meme of interest or click on "Memes" in the menu at the top of the page to access the full Meme Database. Entries are organized by their verification status ("Submissions," "Researching," and "Confirmed") and by their popularity online and in the "real" world ("Most Popular" and "Newsworthy"). Each entry explains what the meme is about, documents its origins and spread, and offers examples and external references. Because the database uses wiki software, users can submit their own memes for community research and discussion, followed by further evaluation by the site's editorial staff and moderators. Know Your Meme was founded in 2008 and is published by Literally Media, Ltd. [MJZ]

Comment on or rate this resource

The U.S. is an artistically and culturally diverse country. Each year, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awards National Heritage Fellowships to recognize individuals or groups in honor of their "excellence in the folk and traditional arts." From Navajo basket weavers to Appalachian raconteurs, the 400 individual and group fellows sustain cultural traditions, advocate for folk arts, and mentor other artists and community members. Now, through the efforts of NEA, the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, and Esri (previously featured in the 10-04-2019 Scout Report), visitors can journey across this cultural landscape with the Masters of Tradition story map. On the map, users can click red circles to travel virtually to where these fellows are and to learn about their folk art, explore their backgrounds, and see photos of their work. For instance, visitors can click Ellsworth, Kansas, the home of Kepka Belton, 1988 fellow and Czech American egg decorator. Alternatively, users can scroll through fellows in the box at the right side of the page or use the search bar to explore fellows by name, place, tradition, culture group, or year. To learn about the story map project or the sponsoring organizations, visitors can click links in the bar at the top of the page. [MJZ]

Comment on or rate this resource

Open Folklore is a collaborative project created by Indiana University Libraries and the American Folklore Society (AFS) with a goal of showcasing and growing "the number and variety of open access resources, published and unpublished, that are available for the field of folklore studies and the communities with whom folklore scholars partner." The project recognizes that many of the traditional pathways to access folklore material are restricted by copyright and subscription or because some materials have never been formally published. The project seeks to provide interested parties, scholars, and folklore enthusiasts with a rich array of books, journals, and gray literature. On the page linked above, visitors can find open-access materials and resources using a basic keyword search (with options to filter results by format, author, year, or other metadata). Users can also browse through available "Books," "Journals," "Web Archives," or "Gray Literature." A "News" section (found in the menu at the top of the page) provides timely updates and news from the field and about the project. In that same menu, readers will find a link to the "AFS Ethnographic Thesaurus," which was developed to improve access to and guide research about folklore, ethnomusicology, ethnology, and related fields. [REB]

Comment on or rate this resource

Last featured in the 10-06-2017 Scout Report, the podcast Lore continues to produce quality weekly episodes exploring history, folk tales, and culture. Listeners can catch up with recent episodes touching on music ("Strings"), forests ("Rooted"), and hope ("Beyond the Pale"), or enjoy remastered versions of some of the earliest episodes from the podcast's run.

Folks who enjoy celebrating the month of October with spooky or mysterious tales will enjoy Lore, a podcast dedicated to "dark historical tales." Launched in 2015 by Aaron Mahnke, Lore now has a back catalogue of more than 180 podcasts, each exploring the history behind various pieces of folklore. For example, the episode "Wide Open" tells the story of the so-called Van Meter Visitor, a mysterious, gigantic bat-like creature that a handful of well-respected Iowa residents reported seeing in 1903. Another episode, "Desperate Measures," tells the story of the 1928 murder of Nelson Rehmeyer and its connection to a group of central Pennsylvania residents who practiced a form of folk magic. Mahnke situates each episode's story in the context of universal human behavior, connecting his historical subjects to what makes us human to provide insight into how we all make sense of a sometimes mysterious world. From the page linked above, visitors can navigate to episodes by clicking "Listen" in the menu, learn about the show and its host ("About"), or check out related media such as an Amazon Prime series ("Watch") and Lore books ("Read"). [MMB] [MJZ]

Comment on or rate this resource