The Scout Report -- Volume 23, Number 27

Comprised of a team of K-12 and university educators, the Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO) is dedicated to providing tools and resources to help educators of all levels and subject areas integrate philosophy education into their classrooms. On this website, educators can find a wealth of resources, including lesson plans, unit plans, classroom activities, articles of interest, videos, and more. Perhaps the best place for educators to start exploring is the Philosopher's Toolkit, which can be found under the Resources tab. Here, teachers can browse for materials by subject, including Math, Science, Languages & Literature, and Social Studies. Lesson and unit plans are labeled by intended audience (e.g. College/University, High School, Middle School, Elementary) and include all necessary materials. Educators may also want to browse the Library to find free philosophy texts and multimedia materials. Elementary school educators in particular may want to check out a collection of podcast episodes that introduce young children to philosophy, available under the Stories tab. [MMB]

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Launched in 1996, The William Blake Archive was one of the first digital humanities projects. Now managed by a team of scholar editors across the U.S. in collaboration with the Carolina Digital Library and Archives (CDLA), The William Blake Archive has greatly expanded thanks to the support of numerous institutions. This website was skillfully redesigned in December 2016, allowing scholars and educators to explore this collection with greater ease. Visitors are invited to search the collection or browse by five categories: Illuminated Books, Commercial Book Illustrations, Separate Prints and Prints in Series, Drawings and Paintings, and Manuscripts and Typographic Works. Those new to the work of Blake may also want to check out the site's extensive biography and glossary that provides context to Blake's work. [MMB]

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What is the purpose of science in society? What role should the general public play in the sciences? J. Robert Oppenheimer answered these questions in a lecture delivered at Dartmouth College on April 14, 1959. This 80-minute speech, which was part of a series of public lectures at the college, will be of interest to students of science as well as students of ethics. The title of his lecture, "Freedom and Necessity in the Sciences," comes from what Oppenheimer saw as the two major motivators of science: the quest to gain knowledge for the sake of knowledge, "freedom"; and the quest to solve a problem, "necessity". On this website, courtesy of Dartmouth College, visitors can download and listen to this lecture in its entirety. Readers will also find a helpful Lecture Summary that outlines the speech and notes the exact times when major subjects and themes are discussed. Readers will also find copies of correspondence between Dartmouth College staff and Oppenheimer himself. [MMB]

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English literature instructors, along with fans of the prolific Shelley/Godwin/Wollstonecraft family, will want to check out this online exhibit and resource collection from the New York Public Library. This exhibit, examines Percy Shelley's life, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and its enduring legacy, and other remarkable individuals in the Shelleys' circle, including Lord Byron. The site is organized into four sections: Shelley's Ghost, Frankenstein, Creation & Remix, and Outsiders. Showcased archival materials include a digitized copy of the earliest preserved Percy Shelley poem, "A Cat in Distress"; the frontispiece of an 1831 edition of Frankenstein; and a number of scrapbooks crafted by Anne Wagner and Julia Conyers, who were contemporaries of Percy and Mary Shelley. These books, as the site notes, were one of the few creative outlets available for women during this time period. Another highlight of this site is a series of short dramatic readings of Frankenstein that may serve as valuable classroom resources. Middle and high school English instructors will find additional classroom resources via Educator Resources in the Shelley's Ghost section. [MMB]

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From the Butler University Libraries and Center for Digital Technology comes this LibGuide for Art and Visual Rhetoric resources. While librarian Sheri Storms designed this LibGuide specifically for students in a particular Butler University Arts course, this collection of resources may appeal more broadly to other arts instructors and students. The three sections that will be of most interest are Websites, Visual Culture Resources, and Visual Rhetoric Resources. The Websites section highlights a variety of internet resources related to art and art history, including online indices and galleries. The Visual Culture Resources section includes resources from a variety of universities along with books that may be of interest. Finally, the extensive Visual Rhetoric Resources section shares online resources related to typography, advertising, comic strips, and more. [MMB]

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How does global climate change impact the health of individuals and communities? The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) offers this collection of resources to engage students and members of the general public with issues at the intersection of health and climate. These resources are designed for kids and adults in Minnesota, but many can be adapted for individuals in other areas as well. For instance, educators in the U.S. midwest may be able to use the 27-minute video about how climate change is impacting the ecology and public health of Minnesota. This video is accompanied by a discussion guide for adults designed to create dialogue. Meanwhile, middle school educators will find a variety of classroom activities along with a lesson plan and PowerPoint presentation designed to teach major vocabulary and concepts related to climate change and health. Many of these educational resources are not Minnesota-specific and could be used in a variety of science and health classrooms. [MMB]

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Baylor College of Medicine offers a wealth of resources for biology teaches in Texas and around the world. These series of online courses are designed to help teachers (and lifelong learners) expand their expertise on a number of scientific subjects. This collection includes two courses designed by the Baylor College of Medicine in collaboration with Nature Education's Scitable, addressing Key Advances in Genetics and Seminal Experiments in Genetics, respectively. This series also includes four Short Courses: An Introduction to Genes and Inherited Traits; Environmental Health: Indoor Air Pollution; Introduction to Force and Motion; and Physical Science of Water. Each of these modules includes clear objectives, a pre-test short readings, a glossary, and a number of chances to test your new knowledge. In addition, these courses provide educators with the chance to earn clock hours toward re-licensure. Another series of courses are designed specifically to help Texas science teachers prepare for their content knowledge licensure exam, but may also appeal more broadly to anyone looking to brush up on included subjects. [MMB]

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Social studies teachers, debate coaches, and writing instructors may want to check out C-SPAN's Classroom Deliberations. This collection of resources, endorsed by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), is designed to engage young people with a number of contemporary controversial issues. This resource collection consists of two components. Instructors can browse this collection by Issue; recent issues featured include "fake news," the Electoral College, and the death penalty. Each collection contains multiple video clips from C-SPAN, including interviews, town halls, and congressional speeches. These materials are accompanied by a lesson plan and related classroom materials, such as vocabulary charts and graphic organizers. The Classroom Deliberation page also includes links to outside resources that describe procedures for classroom activities instructors may want to pursue in regard to these topics, including student position papers and Structured Academic Controversies (SAC). [MMB]

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The New York Society Library opened in 1754 and remained the preeminent library in New York City until the NYC public library system was established in 1895. The Library continues to play an important role today and recently launched City Readers, a "database of historic records, books, and readers." Visitors may want to start by checking out the Featured section, which highlights item collections of interest. Here, visitors will find a digitized copy of the circulation ledger for the library between 1789 and 1792, in its original format; the borrowing records of 57 women who patronized the library in the late eighteenth century; and the complete borrowing records for the Founding Fathers. In addition, this collection includes a series of letters authored by or about Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton following the death of her husband, Alexander Hamilton. Meanwhile, those interested in using the database can do so via the Browse (which allows visitors to explore records by categories including Book Authors, Readers, and Book Subject. Visitors are also invited to conduct an Advanced Search of this database. [MMB]

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This interactive feature from National Geographic invites visitors to explore Yellowstone National Park and imagine what it might be like to experience the park from the point of view of a bear. The team behind this project strapped tracking cameras to two grizzly bears and two black bears. What's at the center of these bear's lives? Without a doubt, food. As this feature highlights, these "opportunistic omnivores" travel from habitat to habitat in order to find nourishment. As visitors watch footage from these four bear cameras (accompanied by a map that charts each bear's travels), they will see bears forage for berries, interact with other bears (not always peacefully), and devour carcasses. This camera footage is accompanied by photographs, texts, and recorded commentary from biologists, providing context to this footage. [MMB]

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The Textile Museum at George Washington University was founded in 1925 by textile collector and philanthropist George Hewitt Myers. Today, the collection contains no fewer than 20,000 textiles from around the world and includes rugs, clothing, wall hangings, and more. Visitors can learn more about the museum's complete collection via the Collection Highlights section, which provides an overview of the museum's collection by region. Meanwhile, the Featured Pieces section allows visitors to examine 87 pieces from the collection, accompanied by short captions. Among these featured pieces are: a silk kimono from early twentieth-century Japan; a carpet woven in Cairo, Egypt around the year 1500; a sash from eighteenth-century Poland; a tunic from eighth- or ninth-century Peru; and a small rug from nineteenth-century Turkmenistan. This collection is highly enjoyable to browse and offers a glimpse into the diversity of textile styles and materials across region and time. [MMB]

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From the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City comes this online exhibit of a wide variety of paintings found in Islamic texts. As the team behind this exhibit explains, "Since Islam refers to both the religious faith and civilization of Muslims, this online exhibition includes both religious and secular texts." This online exhibit features six sections, each of which highlights a different text or category of texts important to Islamic culture. The Qu'ran collection includes images from copies of the Qu'ran created between the tenth and nineteenth centuries. Each of these images is accompanied by a detailed description. Meanwhile, in Natural History and Astrology, visitors can examine illustrations from two important manuscripts: Manafi-i-hayavan (The Benefit of Animals), created during the reign of Ghazan Khan (1195-1204); and Matali? al-sa'ada wa manabi? al-siyada (The Ascension of Propitious Stars and Sources of Sovereign), authored in the late sixteenth century. In another section, visitors can view manuscripts relating to the Persian mystic and poet, Rumi. Visitors can zoom in on each of these images to explore these detailed paintings in great detail. [MMB]

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The Civitates Orbis Terrarum was an atlas of cities around the world published between 1572 and 1617 and edited by Cologne-based cleric, Georg Braun. The atlas contained no fewer than 546 "bird-eye and map views of cities all over the world" including Mexico D.F., Mexico; Budapest, Hungary; Alexandria, Egypt; and Warsaw, Poland. The Clemson Center for Geospatial Technologies has made a select number of these maps available via the Historic City Projects. On this interactive map, powered by Esri, visitors can view some of the maps that appeared in the atlas's six volumes. While some of these maps (like the detailed 1588 depiction of Bologna, Italy) offer the kind of street details that we're used to seeing on contemporary maps, others appear more like an illustration than a map to modern eyes. As a result, this collection offers a fascinating glimpse into the history of cartography. [MMB]

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Hosted by neuroscientists Marie McNeely, People Behind the Science is a podcast that aims "to inspire current and future scientists, share the different paths to a successful career in science, educate the general population on what scientists do, and show the human side of science." In each episode, McNeely interviews a different scientist about their research and the day-to-day work that makes up their research. McNeely has intentionally designed these interviews to be accessible to any listener, asking questions like "How would you explain your work to someone who is not in science?" Each interview is between 30 and 60 minutes in length. Visitors can browse past interviews on this website in the Scientists section, which allows visitors to browse by scientist name or area of study. As of this write up, there are just over 400 interviews available. [MMB]

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James Mulraine is an art historian and art dealer who especially loves British art dating before 1830. Mulraine shares his passion and deep knowledge for early modern art, along with news from the art auction circuit, in this interesting blog. Each entry is accompanied by multiple paintings, allowing visitors to discover pieces of art they may be unfamiliar with while learning new tidbits of art history. For example, one recent post explores the work of John Closterman, who painted a number of members of King Carlos II's court. In another post, Mulraine reports on the discovery of a new self-portrait by Michael Dahl, who was known for his portraiture during the late Stuart period. Meanwhile, another recent entry discusses contemporary Cornish landscape painter Andrew Barrowman (Mulraine recently purchased one of Barrowman's works at auction). Mulraine launched this blog in 2014 and continues to update it regularly. [MMB]

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At 126 years of age, the reputation of the concert hall built by industrialist Andrew Carnegie and conductor and composer Walter Damrosch as one of the premiere stages in the United States is firmly established. This website from the Carnegie Hall Archives allows users to search and browse through past performances from 1891 though 2017 by keyword, composer, work, performer, date, or date range. Although Carnegie Hall is known for classical performances, a few test searches on Pete Seeger and David Bowie produced interesting results. Pete Seeger as a keyword retrieved 80 performances starting with the American Folk Music Concert Saturday, April 20, 1946 to Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger with The Guthrie Family in 2013. David Bowie performed at Carnegie Hall in 1972 with the Spiders From Mars and several times in the early 2000s at benefit concerts for Tibet, but to see the all-star listing from the Bowie Tribute concert in March of 2016, you must search by keyword or composer. For those less familiar with performers and composers, a nice search feature allows typing in the first few letters of a name and seeing the choices filled in automatically. A short history of Carnegie Hall is provided as a 12-page .pdf, and there's also an illustrated timeline. [DS]

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Brackets is a text editor designed especially for front-end web developers. Web development workflow often involves jumping between the HTML, Javascript, and CSS files that comprise a site. Many other editors support this workflow by allowing users to open multiple files in tabs. Brackets supports tabs too, but also provides an "inline editor" feature that can quickly open related files. For example, a user editing an HTML file can place their cursor on an HTML element, enter a keystroke, and Brackets will then open an inset showing all the corresponding CSS for that HTML element. Google Chrome users can also use Brackets' "live preview" feature to watch their code edits take effect in Chrome in real-time. Users working with Javascript-heavy sites may also appreciate Brackets' integrated JS debugging facilities. Brackets can also serve as a general-purpose editor, and includes syntax highlighting for most common programming languages including Python, Perl, Ruby, Java, and C/C++. Brackets is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. [CRH]

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JSFiddle provides an online sandbox for testing snippets of HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Users enter code in each of these languages into the corresponding panel, press 'run', and a fourth panel displays the result. JSFiddle supports streamlined loading of most popular Javascript libraries. Rather than vanilla Javascript, users may also employ Typescript or CoffeeScript. JSFiddle also provides a "tidy" feature that can be used to format messy code according to commonly used style guides. Individual "fiddles" can be saved and shared, allowing users to demonstrate interesting techniques and also to seek help with code that does not quite work as desired. The "collaborate" feature may be of particular interest to users seeking assistance. This feature generates a link that will permit other users to access and edit a fiddle, displaying their modifications in real time. JSFiddle can be used from all the popular web browsers. [CRH]

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