The Scout Report -- Volume 23, Number 44

From the Rachel Carson Center for the Environment and Society (a non-profit organization created by the University of Munich and the Deutsches Museum) comes the Environment & Society Portal. This portal aims to serve as a "gateway to open-access resources about human participation in, and understandings of, the environment." This rich collection of resources includes archival material, short essays, multimedia material, and websites. Best of all, this collection is thoughtfully arranged so as to be engaging and accessible to scholars and educators as well as interested members of the general public. One highlight of the portal is the Virtual Exhibitions (available via the contents tab), where portal materials are grouped according to a specific theme or event. For example, one virtual exhibit explores the history of water in Bogota, Colombia through photographs, historical cartography, and primary documents. Visitors to the Environment & Society Portal who are interested in learning more about a specific topic will also want to check out Arcadia, a series of short, peer reviewed essays about a variety of topics related to environmental history. Portal material can also be explored via a number of exploration tools - be sure to check out the timeline tool (in beta as of this write-up), which was created using the Wellcome Library's open source timeline. [MMB]

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Originally featured in the The Scout Report in 2016, we've decided to re-feature this fascinating digital collection held by The British Library. Discovering Literature: 20th Century is a collection of contemporary essays and archival material that centers on "the ways in which key 20th century authors experimented with new forms and themes to capture the fast-changing world around them." This extensive collection, which features over 300 digitized documents from "the British Library collection and beyond" and dozens of multimedia essays by scholars and writers, offers material that may appeal to both English literature (and drama) instructors as well as English literature fans. Folks interested in the archival material will want to immediately scroll to the bottom of this page to locate a notebook draft of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, George Orwell's original notes for 1984, and much more. This collection can also be explored by theme: under the topic of gender and sexuality, readers will find a number of essays related to that topic, including an essay on E.M. Forster and another on actor Murray Melvin. These essays are accompanied by related archival material. Finally, teachers will find a handful of lesson plans via the teaching resources link at the bottom of the webpage. [MMB]

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The National Library of Medicine hosts MedPix, which is a "searchable online database of medical images, teaching cases, and clinical topics." As of this write-up, this collection includes almost 54,000 images, including x-rays, photographs, and more, which visitors can explore by conducting a text search. Visitors interested in exploring the collection can browse by diagnosis, which are organized alphabetically. For example, those interested in learning more about ACL tears can view five x-ray images of this injury, accompanied by information about each image's source and, when possible, information about the patient (such as age) and their specific injury. In total, this collection includes almost 20,000 patient cases. MedPix was designed as a resource for current medical practitioners as well as medical students. MedPix also offers a free Continuing Medical Education (CME) course for current medical practitioners. [MMB]

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For K-12 art instructors, the Denver Art Museum offers this collection of "creativity resources" that may inspire ideas for lesson plans or classroom activities. While some of these resources involve a field trip to the Denver Art Museum, this collection also includes a number of lesson plans, videos, book recommendations and other resources that may appeal to art educators located anywhere in the world. For example, one creative practice activity, "Zoom In!" suggests that educators give young children a detailed image of a small section of an artwork in order to elicit curiosity and inquiry about the piece as a whole. The lesson plan "Building Outside the Box" invites young learners to think about architecture through creating their own building with a flatform box. Instructors can filter resources by age group, resource type, time period of featured art works, 21st century skills (e.g. critical thinking; collaboration) or co-standards (e.g. language arts; social studies). [MMB]

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What is modernity? How did philosophy, literature, and art throughout nineteenth century Europe shape notions of modernity? How did these notions of modernity help shape culture and politics? Is our contemporary world best designed as modern or postmodern? This free, online Coursera class from Wesleyan University is designed to facilitate exploration of these questions. Taught by Wesleyan University president Michael S. Roth, this seven week course centers on texts by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Charles Baudelaire, and Friedrich Nietzsche. In addition, this course invites students to examine art work and Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. By registering for the course, students may access all course videos, readings and discussions. [MMB]

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Science educators who work with fourth through sixth graders will find lesson plans and additional resources in this useful and educational website. These resources were created by a team of science educators located in Santa Barbara and Carpinteria, California in collaboration with the non-profit educational organization West Ed. At Science Matters, science teachers can download seven complete units, including units on 4th Grade Earth Science: Ecosystems; 5th Grade Physical Science: Chemistry and Matter; and 6th Grade Earth Science: Plate Tectonics. All unit materials, including lesson plans, assessments, and graphic organizers, can be downloaded in PDF formats. Each unit is also accompanied by a short introduction. [MMB]

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In 1934, the Chatham Coloured All-Stars from Chatham, Ontario won the Ontario Baseball Amateur Association Championship. In doing so, the team was the first black team to win the championship. This online resource is dedicated to the Chatham Coloured All-Stars and, in particular, Wilfred "Boomer" Harding, who was just 17 years old when he helped the All-Stars win the title. As noted on the site's homepage, this project is a "partnership between the Harding family, the University of Windsor's Department of History, the Leddy Library's Centre for Digital Scholarship, and the Chatham Sports Hall of Fame." Visitors who are new to the story of the Chatham team may want to start by checking out the history tab, which provides a helpful overview of the history of the team and its significance in Canadian culture. Perhaps the two highlights of this project are the 1934 timeline and the interview sections. The former provides a detailed tour through the history of the All-Stars' 1934 season as told through historic newspaper articles. In the interview section, visitors will find a number of oral history interviews with individuals who were connected to the Chatham Coloured All-Stars in different ways. Finally, educators should note that this collection includes curricular materials for K-12 classrooms. [MMB]

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The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center's mission is to "eliminate cancer in Texas, the nation, and the world through outstanding programs that integrate patient care, research and prevention, and through education for undergraduate and graduate students, trainees, professionals, employees and the public." The MD Anderson Center's Historical Resources Center hosts this collection of oral history interviews with a variety of faculty and staff who have worked or who currently work at the center. This collection may be of interest to those interested in the history and future of oncology research. To access these interviews, visitors need to click on the + symbol next to each interviewed individual's name. From here, visitors will be directed to a page with a description of each interview and a link to the oral history recording. Once visitors select the link to each oral history recording, they will then be directed to read a disclaimer about the interview collection (noting that interviews do not necessarily reflect the views of MD Anderson Cancer Center). Users can then select a link to hear the interview. From here, interviews are available by selecting the play button in the top left-hand box. As of this write up, this collection features 39 interviews, which collectively address topics including oncology, nursing, scientific publications, the history of cancer treatments, and much more. [MMB]

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Jheronimus (Hieronymus) Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights is an intricate and somewhat cryptic triptych painting that the Dutch artist created sometime in the late-fifteenth or early sixteenth century. Pieter van Huystee of the Dutch public service broadcaster NTR directed this informative and fascinating interactive tour of this painting. Visitors may want to start by taking the highlight tour, which outlines major events, items, and themes portrayed in the painting via 15 short audio documentaries (also available as a transcript). Alternatively, visitors can select what sections of this painting to explore through the "freely explore" option. These audio documentaries combine analysis of The Garden of Earthly Delights with historical information of Bosch's personal life and about fifteenth and sixteenth century Europe. In addition, visitors will want to check out the extra story links as they explore this painting in order to gain even more insight about Bosch and this enigmatic work. [MMB]

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For individuals with a connection to or interest in the Beehive State, the Utah History Encyclopedia is home to a wealth of information and photographs (courtesy of the Utah State Historical Society) that document the state's history. This website began in the mid-1990s as a collaborative effort between the University of Utah and the Utah Collections Multimedia Encyclopedia. Today, this online encyclopedia is maintained by the Utah Education Network and includes text entries that appeared in the print version of the encyclopedia, along with additional multimedia resources. Visitors are invited to conduct a text search or to browse this collection alphabetically. Featured topics include Coal Mining in Utah, Dinosaurs of Utah, Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Zion National Park, and Outlaws, to name a few. In addition, this collection features entries on a number of famous Utahns throughout history. [MMB]

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National Geographic recently published Rewind the Red Planet, an interactive feature that demonstrates how the landscape of Mars has changed over the past 3.8 billion years. As this feature demonstrates, scientists aren't entirely sure what Mars looked like 3.8 billion years ago. Some evidence suggests that Mars featured crater lakes and possibly even an ocean. Other evidence, however, suggests that Mars was once a glacial planet. As visitors scroll through this webpage, they will see artistic renderings of Mars and its different features throughout time. Each image is accompanied by a short description that describes the events and phenomena that changed this planet over billions of years. [MMB]

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New Delhi, India is home to the National Handicrafts and Handlooms Museum, colloquially referred to as the Crafts Museum. As this Google Arts and Culture page dedicated to the Crafts Museum notes, "Unlike most museums, which display dead or old or rare objects, this is a museum of living crafts, of skills and objects still in common use." This virtual exhibit allows visitors to explore the Craft Museum's remarkable collection in a variety of ways. One option is to explore items through eight stories, which are themed collections accompanied by short descriptions. For example, the story "Murals at the Crafts Center: a Catalyst for Change" presents visitors with a series of murals that appear in the museum, presented in the order that one would encounter these murals were they to visit the museum in New Delhi. "Painted Fables: Panchatantra Chitra" presents works created by ten different artists who were inspired by the Panchatantra, a collection of fables and folktales. Visitors may also explore items in the Crafts Museum by category, such as textile, mask, and paper. Visitors can also browse the 218 items featured in this collection via a timeline or by color. [MMB]

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From Portland, Oregon community radio station KBOO comes Between the Covers - a bimonthly podcast dedicated to books. Hosted by David Naimon, each episode features a detailed consideration (approximately 90 minutes in length) of a single piece of literature. Many episodes also feature a long-form interview with the book's author. As of this write-up, the most recent episode is an interview with poet and writer Eileen Myles, who recently published the "dog memoir" Afterglow. Other books recently featured include Celeste Ng's novel Little Fires Everywhere; Safiya Sinclair's poetry collection Cannibal; and Morgan Parker's poetry collection There are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce. Visitors can browse previous author interviews via the author index in order to find more interviews of interest. Book lovers may also want to check out Naimon's blog, also available through a link on this website. [MMB]

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When a team of archeologists uncovered a mass grave in East London in the 1990s, they initially hypothesized that it must have been a burial site of victims of the plague. However, radiocarbon testing revealed that the skeletons dated from sometime around 1250 CE, a century before the plague was introduced to Europe. So what happened? Through examining a number of historic manuscripts, archeologist Don Walker discovered that England had experienced a famine, caused by unseasonably frigid weather. In the year 1258 this famine, which killed no fewer than 30% of London's population, was likely caused by a volcanic eruption. This recent episode of PBS's NOVA, which aired on October 25, 2017, explores the science behind how volcanic eruptions impact global climate. This episode includes a consideration of the Mount Laki eruptions of 1783 and 1784, the Mount Tambora eruption of 1815, and the Mount Pinatubo eruption of 1991. Interested viewers can watch the full episode and check out a few related resources. [MMB]

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What can Google tell us about the way that individuals plan recipes throughout the year? During which month are people most likely to conduct a Google search for "eggplant"? This series of infographics, created by the Google News Lab in collaboration with data visualization company Truth & Beauty, are dedicated to the annual rhythms of how individuals think about food. This team has created a series of year clocks that show how the number of Google searches for a particular item ebb and flow throughout the year. Some trends are clearly impacted by holidays - unsurprisingly, searches for "champagne" generally peak around New Year's Day. Other trends are influenced by crop growing seasons. Of course, growing seasons vary around the world. Unless otherwise noted, all "year clocks" reflect data from the United States. One series of "year clocks," however, compare and contrast Google searches for three popular crops (kale, apple, and asparagus) in three different countries. [MMB]

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Silex is a graphical site builder designed for quickly assembling landing pages or small sites. Individual pages are created by selecting from a library of templates, then customizing the layout and content using a point-and-click interface. More technical users that prefer to enter their own CSS may also take that approach. Completed sites can be uploaded to your own server via FTP or Webdav, to dropbox, or to github, and from there published on any hosting provider. Sites generated with Silex do not require any special server support to work. Users may opt to use the public Silex editor or to host their own instance of Silex on their own server. Detailed requirements for self-hosting can be found on the Silex github page. Silex can be used through any modern browser. [CRH]

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Tonido is a set of tools to create a "personal cloud." Users install Tonido Server on the machine they wish to use for storage. This machine should have ample storage, but need not have much memory or a particularly powerful processor. A Raspberry Pi will suffice for light usage; official Raspberry Pi images are available. Next, users then install the Tonido client on as many desktops, laptops, tablets, or smart phones as they wish. When on the same network (e.g., in one's home or office), clients can access the Tonido server without sending data over the internet. Access from other networks can be enabled either through port forwarding or by using an encrypted relay through servers at tonido.com. Tonido Server is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, or as a Docker image. Tonido client software is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and Blackberry. [CRH]

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