Internet Scout Project
Although some might fear that limited land resources and the usual development pressures are working to reduce Britain's natural history to footnote status, this website from the Natural History Museum in London effectively documents the UK's impressive biological and geological diversity. The site consists of interactive database features as well as videos (in both Windows Media and Quicktime formats). Exploring Biodiversity, an interactive introduction for students to UK biodiversity, allows u
BEN: BiosciEdNet
This site provides access to more than 4,000 reviewed resources covering 76 biological science topics: agriculture, anatomy, bacteriology, biochemistry, biodiversity, biotechnology, botany, cardiology, cell biology, ecology, environment, evolution, genetics, geography, human biology, immunology, marine biology, microbiology, molecular biology, neurobiology, pathology, pharmacology, physiology, public health, respiratory biology, soil biology, virology, zoology, and others. Registration required.
Actions speak louder than words.
"The Land of Liberty" was the ironic title of this cartoon published in an 1847 edition of the British satirical weekly Punch. As the cartoon suggests, Americans faced a number of dilemmas and crises that came to revolve around the institution of slavery and its expansion into the West. As slavery became more entrenched in Southern social and economic life, the war against Mexico, the forced removal of Native Americans from the Southeastern United States, and conflicts between rich and poor whit
"A Youngster Needs a Knowledge of the Present": A Popular Magazine Urges Tolerance for the Distracti
In the 1950s, parents, educators, religious leaders, and moralists expressed intense concern over the perceived harmful effects of modern life on the nation's youth. This concern was not new, however. Fears of corrupting influences on youth have periodically flooded the public discourse, from child-rearing tomes of the antebellum period to congressional hearings in the 1950s on media and juvenile delinquency. The following editorial from 1950, in the popular magazine Collier's, offered one persp
"A Sop to the Public at Large": Contestant Herbert Stempel Exposes Contrivances in a 1950s Televisio
Television had become the nation's largest medium for advertising by the mid-1950s, when the Revlon cosmetics corporation agreed to sponsor The $64,000 Question, the first prime-time network quiz show to offer contestants fabulous sums of money. As Revlon's average net profit rose in the next four years from $1.2 million to $11 million, a plethora of quiz shows tried to replicate its success. At the height of their popularity, in 1958, 24 network quiz shows--relatively easy and inexpensive to pr
"A society of patriotic ladies."
Cheap prints depicting current events were in great demand in both England and the colonies. This 1775 British print presented a scene in Edenton, North Carolina. Fifty-one women signed a declaration in support of nonimportation, swearing not to drink tea or purchase other British imports. Boycotts of British goods became a widespread form of protest to the Townshend Duties, enacted in 1767 to tax goods such as paint, paper, lead, glass, and tea when they arrived in America. Abstaining from Euro
"A Rale Boost to Lithrachoor": A Humorist Lampoons Libraries
The founders of the great libraries of the 19th century were often ambivalent about whether their goal was to disseminate or conserve knowledge. They were also uncertain about the intended audience. John Cotton Dana of the Newark Public Library was atypical in his populist stance that "it is a proper function of a library to amuse." He argued that a "shallow mind" was better than an "empty one." Other librarians preferred to see themselves as cultivators of public taste and their buildings as up
"A Modern School": Abraham Flexner Outlines Progressive Education
In the early 20th century, an impressive array of intellectuals, social critics, and grassroots activists came together to launch a progressive education movement that sought broad-based change in American educational practice. At the heart of the progressive program lay a pedagogy that emphasized flexibility and critical thinking. This was coupled with the belief that schools should establish organic relationships with their communities, that curricula should confront broad social issues, and t
"A harvest of death, Gettysburg, July 1863."
Photographers covered the Civil War, following the Union Army in wagons that served as traveling darkrooms. Their equipment was bulky and the exposures had to be long, so they could not take action photographs during battle. But photography was graphic; this picture taken on the morning of July 4th, 1863 after three days of heavy fighting during the Battle of Gettysburg, showed the northern public that dying in battle lacked the gallantry often represented in paintings and prints.
"A German Beer Garden on Sunday Evening."
Between 1820 and 1860, 1,500,000 immigrants arrived in America from Germany. Many of the new arrivals who settled in cities such as New York worked as shopkeepers and skilled tradesmen, although many more worked as employees in construction, brewing, and manufacturing. Although German immigrants did not mix politics and liquor, reformers were disconcerted by the atmosphere of their social establishments. Unlike the bars in Irish neighborhoods, the beer gardens catered to whole families. As this
"A Decent Home . . . for Every American Family": Postwar Housing Shortage Victims Testify before Con
New home construction declined dramatically during the Great Depression as rents rose, reaching an all-time high in 1940. A persistent housing shortage continuing into the early 1950s forced families to separate and apartment dwellers to "double-up." The housing reform movement, largely ineffectual in the 1920s and 1930s, gathered strength in the postwar period. Labor and veteran groups pressured Congress and the White House to enact a comprehensive housing policy with money for public housing a
"A Clear Signal to Officials of the White South: 'Go Back to Your Old Ways'": Vernon Jordan Argues A
The Voting Rights Act of 1965--called "the most successful civil rights law in the nation's history" by Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights--was enacted in order to force Southern states and localities to allow all citizens of voting age to vote in public elections. Although the 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, guaranteed citizens the right to vote regardless of race, discriminatory requirements, such as literacy tests, disenfranchised many African America
"A Black Joke."
Free African Americans living in the North before the Civil War suffered enormous disadvantages and discriminations. Forced to sit in separate and inferior sections in theaters, public transit, and churches, free blacks were also barred from all but the most menial jobs and denied entrance to white trade unions. This racist cartoon in an 1854 edition of the humor magazine Yankee Notions inadvertently illustrated the everyday harassment and cruelty to which northern African Americans were subject
Euler's Method
This website contains class notes from a 100 level Calculus course at University of British Columbia. The site contains examples and explanations of Euler's method. The lecture notes explain a simple initial value problem to numerically approximate solutions to differential equations, Euler's method and a logistic equation.
Environmental Frontlines Issue Summary: mining on public lands
This case study provided by the Environmental Frontline organization is a summary of the 1872 general mining law reform. It includes background information, facts and figures, 'quotable quotables', and recent actions, as well as links to websites of key players, information sources, and relevant reports. Environmental Frontlines organization monitors current environmental issues and the groups involved with such issues. The Mining on Public Lands case study is part of that monitoring program.
Earth Observatory: Data and Images
This Earth Observatory site contains data and images from NASA's Earth Observatory project. The purpose of NASA's Earth Observatory is to provide an accessible publication on the Internet where the public can obtain new satellite imagery and scientific information about our home planet. The focus is on Earth's climate and environmental change. The site is useful to public media and educators. Data and images can be obtained for a variety of subjects, the Earth's atmosphere, land, life on earth,
Charlestown public housing
Footage of the building which houses the offices of the Boston Housing Authority in Charlestown. Footage of rundown buildings in the Bunker Hill Housing Project in Charlestown. Many of the buildings have boarded up windows or broken windows. Trash is visible along the sidewalks and walkways in front of the buildings. Shots of a series of photographs of a meeting between Joseph Timilty (State Senator) and Jimmy Carter (US President).John Vitagliano (Boston Housing Inspection Commissioner) is inte
Romantic-Era Songs
This not-for-profit site is intended to make vocal music and lyrics of the of the early 19th century in the British Isles, Europe, Canada, the United States, and Australia more accessible. It includes contemporary music of the period and later settings (e.g., Brian Holmes's complete score for Death's Jest Book and Lori Lange's settings of Byron lyrics).
Boston jobs for Boston residents
Christopher Lydon reports that Ray Flynn (Mayor of Boston) is requesting the creation of a Boston Employment Commission in order to boost the number of Boston residents working in Boston jobs. Lydon notes that the Flynn administration would like the Boston work force to be 10% female, 25% minority and 50% Boston residents. Lydon's report includes footage from an interview with Flynn about employment in Boston. Lydon reports that Flynn's proposed ordinance would change the demographics of the wor
Boston City Council makes fair housing policy
David Boeri reports that Ray Flynn (Mayor of Boston) and the Boston City Council will work together to create a public housing policy that ensures equal access while providing some element of choice. Boeri notes that the city must comply with the policy of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) if they wish to continue receiving federal funds. Boeri's report includes footage of Flynn, Charles Yancey (Boston City Council), and Bruce Bolling (Boston City Council) at a press conferen
