The Scout Report -- Volume 22, Number 1

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) has assembled a good deal of accessible information on the nature and importance of pathogens on this educational site. Readers may like to begin by scouting the four main types of microorganisms: bacteria, fungi, viruses, and protozoa. For instance, the bacteria section explains the structure of bacteria, outlines the different types of bacteria, and offers that "80 million bacteria could easily lie down on one side of a pound coin." Readers will also find much to appreciate in the Parasites section, as well as the sections on How pathogens are spread, How pathogens cause disease, and Growth of pathogen populations. Each section features key terms and their definitions, animations that will help facilitate instruction, and easily downloadable diagrams. The site also boasts a ten question quiz where readers can test their knowledge of microorganisms. [CNH]

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The Society for Cultural Anthropology is a burgeoning, innovative, and intellectually stimulating organization with an impressive academic journal and an engaging web presence. As part of its mission to bring anthropology into public discourse, the Society offers a continually updated and culturally relevant set of teaching tools that coincide with the magazine's published material. Readers will find such captivating entries as Teaching Anthropology Electric, styled after Walt Whitman's classic stanza, "I Sing the Body Electric." The editors are sure to note that the entry is not a curriculum or syllabus, but "an inspiration and invitation" for educational use. The same could be said of many of these teaching tools, which are designed for the adventurous educator, one looking for inspiration rather than structure. The upswing of this energetic approach is that most of the links and resources will provide inspiration for a variety of readers, from high school teachers to college and community college professors, and anybody fascinated by the developing field of cultural anthropology. [CNH]

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The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) has assembled an impressive array of materials for K-12 educators on this informative site. Here readers will find resources divided into three age-based categories, Grades K-3, Grades 4-6, and Grades 7-12. Each category harbors colorful and informative resources designed to spark student interest in caring for animals. For instance, the Career PowerPoint Presentations, a section available under each grade category, provide educators with everything they need to help students understand the possibilities of a career in veterinary science. Each PowerPoint is accompanied by presenter's notes designed to compliment the presentation, and a copy of frequently asked questions from students engaged with the experience of being a veterinarian. Other helpful and free resources include the National Pet Week lesson plans, the Petpourri Activity Pages, and Teacher Guide Lesson Plans, which feature such topics as The Life of a Bovine Veterinarian, Veterinarians Help Animals in Space, and Emergency Care Veterinarian. [CNH]

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This striking, comprehensive lesson plan for high school psychology teachers takes five class periods to complete. Along the way, students will learn the multi system model of memory, explore sensory memory and working memory, understand the encoding processes associated with long-term memory, focus on the retrieval aspects of long-term memory, and analyze the many dynamics of memory in everyday life. Each section introduces students to various activities, including research-based study tips to increase memory retention, and engages them in critical thinking exercises. Educators will be hard-pressed to find a more thorough lesson plan on the scope and workings of memory. Designed by Cynthia P. May, PhD and Gilles O. Einstein, PhD in accord with the current American Psychology Association standards, the freely downloadable PDF can serve as a complete lesson plan for any high school psychology educator. [CNH]

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Mastering organic chemistry is no easy task; this comprehensive list of resources from the Master Organic Chemistry website can help. Here readers will find online courses, teaching websites, online textbooks, online quizzes, online exams, and more. Most resources, like Academic "Earth's Organic Chemistry - Structure and Reactivity" and Ian Gould's organic chemistry website at Arizona State University, are free. Some, like David Klein's Organic Chemistry As A Second Language can be purchased from the links on the site. Students looking for Places to Ask Questions will find links to Chemical Forums, while other readers may like to scout the Mastering Organic Chemistry blog, which is updated regularly and addresses such entries as Protecting Groups in Grignard Reactions and Organometallics Are Strong Bases. [CNH]

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The College Board has gathered together an impressive array of resources related to the benefits and challenges of community college education. Here readers will find Information for Students and Parents, such as an article that explains Why Community College or a two-page PDF document that discusses Six Benefits of Community College. A section also highlights some Online College Planning Tools, including the impressive (and free) resource, College Search, which allows users to filter the 3,853 college options based on Test Scores & Selectivity, Type of School, Location, Campus & Housing, and other important considerations. In addition, the Links for Professionals section provides valuable resources for counselors, educators, and administrators who are passionate about supporting students on their journey into and through community college. Finally, the Publications section boasts more than two dozen downloadable PDFs that highlight critical issues affecting community colleges today, from increasing access to helping advisers assess their students strengths and weaknesses. [CNH]

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For readers who are fascinated by the machinations of hotel and business management, it can be hard to find innovative, peer-reviewed information that isn't locked behind a paywall. The open-access Journal of Hotel & Business Management is a reliable source for the latest in the field. Readers can scout the site by Journal Highlights, which include Advertising, Business and Management, Corporate Governance, Customer Satisfaction, and other relevant topics. At the time of this writing, recently published articles included examinations of hotel revenue management strategies, the leveraging of sustainability certifications, and a case study of ecotourism in northern Ethiopia. Readers may also like to explore the Aims and Scope section, which clarifies the intentions of the journal, including its focus on providing a "rapid turnaround time" so that information can be accessed while it's still relevant and helpful. [CNH]

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The Purdue Online Writing Lab (or OWL, as it is affectionately known) is one of the world's most popular online writing resources. So it is no surprise that this list of ESL Teacher Resources is as inviting as it is comprehensive. As the site notes, the list contains resources both theoretical and practical; it links to organizations and journals as well as to online teaching and reference materials. Educators working with English language learners may like to begin at the bottom of the list, with the excellent selection of Teaching Resources, such as the link to Internet TESL Journal Links Page, which contains an "extensive, well organized set of links to scholarly and pedagogical resources." The lists of Professional Organizations and Scholarship and Policy Resources are also worth a visit, each detailing excellent resources from around the Web. [CNH]

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Larry Summers has built an impressive resume as one of the world's most prominent economists. He has been a professor at Harvard, the Chief Economist at the World Bank, Deputy Secretary for International Affairs of the United States Department of the Treasury, and, from 2001 to 2006, president of Harvard University. Since 2010, he has also written extensively about domestic economic policy for news outlets such as the Financial Times, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. For readers who enjoy a pro-business, empirically derived economics, Mr. Summers' blog will bring hours of intellectual fulfillment. Whether he is writing about his views on the Fed's secular stagnation, elucidating his differences of opinion with fellow economist, Paul Krugman, or explaining why Ukraine's debt could affect American economic growth, Mr. Summers writes with clarity and erudition. [CNH]

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With an annual budget of more than $20 billion and a staff of more than 70,000, the Department of the Interior harbors a broad range of responsibilities, from operating the Bureau of Indian Affairs to overseeing the National Parks system. Tucked away in one corner of this federal behemoth is a fascinating program called the Federal Subsistence Management Program. As the page notes, the role of this "multi-agency effort" is to "provide the opportunity for a subsistence way of life by rural Alaskans on Federal public lands and waters while maintaining healthy populations of fish and wildlife." Readers may scout the latest on Alaskan wildlife, peruse information on Fish stocks, examine updates on the politics of the program (under the Statewide tab), and stay up to date on the Federal Subsistence Board (FSB). This site is a gold mine of information for readers fascinated with the landscape of Alaska and the humans who subsist off its rich natural resources. [CNH]

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Since the 1920s, home movies have been produced by everyday people, documenting daily activities and offering a wealth of information about twentieth century American life. The Home Movie Registry, a curated search engine from the Center for Home Movies (CHM), is an innovative project designed to bring together the swarth of amateur films digitized and collected by participating archives. The About section of the site details the portal's extensive efforts and provides useful context. From there, readers may like to explore the two Exhibits currently featured on the site, one of which highlights Home Movies and the African American Community, while the other provides a look at Home Movies and Television. Readers may also simply scroll down the fascinating list of amateur-made films on the home page, which illuminate such ephemera as a 1950s Chicago picnic and a 1975 homemade travel documentary. For more targeted research, historians, artists, documentarians, students, and others will find an excellent search bar for easy filtering through the Registry's video troves. [CNH]

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This blog from the Smithsonian Institution Archives explores the various people, research, programs, and wonders of the Smithsonian's holdings - a rich cultural repository that began in 1846 and continues to this day. Aptly titled The Bigger Picture, the blog invites readers piece-by-piece into the vast landscape of the Smithsonian Archives. Entries vary in scope, highlighting interesting artifacts, detailing the challenges and benefits of working with the Institution's collections, or offering tips to readers on how to manage their own personal collections. Recent entries have included a photograph of the earth taken from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a short entry about the 1977-78 public "sketch-ins" of Alice the Spider Monkey at the National Zoological Park, and a video entry on the "test tube puppies" that may hold a key to breeding endangered species. The blog succeeds at documenting multiple perspectives on the cultural impact of archives, and entries date back to January 2009. [CNH]

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The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the National Institute of Health (NIH) was established in 1989 for the express purpose of contributing to the International Human Genome Project - the multi-nation, decade-long project that successfully mapped the human genome. With such a rich pedigree it is no surprise that the NHGRI boasts a wonderfully informative website. Take, for instance, the Fact Sheets on Science, Research, Ethics and the Institute, featured here. Readers will find well over a dozen fact sheets, covering topics such as Comparative Genomics, Cloning, DNA Sequencing, and Genetic Mapping. For readers who are looking for clearly written, compendious treatments of all things related to genetics research, the NHGRI site will not disappoint. [CNH]

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Born in Austin, Texas in 1915, Alan Lomax was a folklorist, ethnomusicologist, and musician who traveled the United States and the world recording the performances of thousands of musicians, from Jelly Roll Morton and Woody Guthrie to little known folk singers in Haiti. On the Alan Lomax Sound Archive Online readers will find over 17,400 digital audio files, starting with Lomax's 1946 tape recordings and culminating in his late career recordings before his death in 2002. After absorbing the informative introduction on the landing page, readers may like to select the Sound Collections Guide icon to gain access to such highlights as the 1946 Calypso Concert, as well as recordings from Lomax's trip to Morocco in 1967, his travels in the Soviet occupied Central Asia in 1964, and many other treasures. For anyone fascinated by the world's folk music, the Alan Lomax archives are a source of wonders. [CNH]

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Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University. Besides chairing that department for nearly a decade, she has held academic positions at Cornell University, Brandeis University, and the UCSF School of Medicine and has published five award-winning books on the topic of food safety and food politics. In addition to her many academic and advocacy roles, Dr. Nestle also publishes this regular blog, Food Politics. Recent posts have tackled questions around the FDA's definition of what foods can be called "natural," reviews of food-related books, and a very well-publicized running count of industry-sponsored studies with results favorable to the sponsor. This last effort, which has counted a score of 95 to 9 in favor of sponsors since last March, has garnered critical acclaim and impacted the way many industry insiders look at the formerly trusted peer review process. [CNH]

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Take a virtual trip to Canada for this excellent example of digital local history. A collaboration between a set of City of Burnaby, British Columbia local government institutions, including the public library, city clerk's office, and archives, Heritage Burnaby "represents all of the community assets, heritage services and historic collections managed by the City of Burnaby." Since Burnaby was first incorporated in 1892, this means that there is a rich collection at the website. The Research menu choice leads to the main search options: by collection, neighbourhood, or project. Searches can be further limited by type of material, such as photographs, moving images, textual records, or physical artifacts. Selecting Search under any of the listed material types provides a list of all the items in that category, which can be a handy way to start exploring what's there. Another great feature is the Atlas, which allows a visitor to map change across the decades in both Burnaby's natural environment and its buildings and landmarks. [DS]

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Few visual objects convey the vivacity and context of historical events like a good timeline. Creating a visually appealing one, however, can take hours on PowerPoint or other programs. Enter Timetoast, an online application that allows teachers, students, and the more general user to create snappy, stimulating timelines in minutes. The Public timeline plan allows a single user to produce public, ad supported timelines for free, while the Basic and Pro plans allow for more users and restrict ads for a monthly fee. Simple instructions guide users through the creative process to bring about unique and attractive timelines that can accompany lesson plans of all kinds. Users may also like to review the dozens of publicly available timelines on the homepage in order to garner inspiration. [CNH]

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For readers who want to design beautiful posters, invitations, cards, website graphics, lesson plan accoutrements, or any number of other visuals - but who are not trained in the wily ways of professional design programs, Canva can be a welcome boon. The service allows users to choose from a host of templates for everything from presentations to Facebook covers, and then offers intuitive controls and a storehouse of beautiful images to help even nonprofessionals build beautiful materials. While some images are only available for a cost, there are a number of free items throughout the collection. To use the service, sign up with email, Facebook, or your Google account. Then choose whether you would like to use Canva for your work, personal, or educational needs. Educators will be especially interested in the lesson plans available in the Teaching Materials section of Canva's Design School, featuring Workshops, Lesson Plans, and more. [CNH]

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