The Thomas Jefferson Papers
The complete Thomas Jefferson Papers from the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 27,000 documents. This is the largest collection of original Jefferson documents in the world. Document types in the collection as a whole include correspondence, commonplace books, financial account books, and manuscript volumes. The collection is organized into ten series or groupings, ranging in date from 1606 to 1827. Correspondence, memoranda, notes, and drafts of documents
Origins of American Animation
This site offers 21 animated films and 2 fragments, which span the years 1900 to 1921. The films include clay, puppet, and cut-out animation, as well as pen drawings. They point to a connection between newspaper comic strips and early animated films, as represented by Keeping Up With the Joneses, Krazy Kat, and The Katzenjammer Kids.
Distinguished Innovator Lecture Series: Peter Wolken
Peter Wolken, AVI Management Partners
Peter has been a successful venture capitalist for more than 25 years. His long and successful venture capital and operating experience enables him to quickly evaluate emerging information technologies.
Peter founded (1982) and was a General Partner at Associated Venture Investors (AVI), which managed $140M across three funds. AVI specialized in seed and early-stage investments in information technology companies positioned for high growth. AVI's financial
Lunch Poems: David St. John
David St. John was widely praised and was a National Book Award finalist for Study for the World's Body. Recent books are The Red Leaves of Night from HarperPerennial and Prism from Arctos Press, and his newest, The Face, a book-length poem. His image-rich work muses on both ecstasy and loss. He has been awarded an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the O.B. Hardison prize from the Folger Shakespeare Library. He teaches at USC.
This event took place on April 1, 2004
Tardigrades: Bears of the Moss
This online PowerPoint presentation is dedicated to the phylum Tardigrada. It discusses distinguishing characteristics of Tardigrades (also known as water bears), their relationship to arthropods and nematodes, internal structures, life stages, cryptobiosis, research opportunities, classification, identification, habitat, distribution, ease of study in the lab, and more. Each slide contains illustrations and descriptions of the microscopic animal.
Arctic Bird Migration Monitoring Protocol
The purpose of this resource is to observe when selected bird species first arrive at your study site, and to count the numbers until few or none of these birds are seen. Students select a common and easily identifiable bird species in their region and observe when the bird species first arrives. Students use binoculars or telescopes to scan a study site and count how many they see. They continue to observe every other day until few or none of the selected species can be seen.
Diagramming the Study Site for Others
The purpose of this resource is to develop the best possible representation of the study site as a system. Students visit a study site, where they observe and recall their existing knowledge of air, water, soil, and living things to make a list of interconnections among the four Earth system components. They make predictions about the effects of a change in a system, inferring ways these changes affect the characteristics of other related components.
What Can We Learn About Our Seasons?
The purpose of this resource is to have students develop a qualitative understanding of the characteristics and patterns of seasons and highlight the relationship of seasons to physical, biological and cultural markers. Students observe and record seasonal changes in their local study site. They establish that these phenomena follow annual cycles and conclude the activity by creating displays that illustrate the repeating pattern associated with the appearance and disappearance of seasonal marke
Mentoring matters
How mentors can serve as role models, helpers, and colleagues.
Density of Rocks - Some Applications
In this activity students study some applications of knowing the density of rocks. One set of applications involves the stress, strength, and factor of safety for a rock roof resting on one or more columns in an underground room. A second set of applications involves the normal and shear stresses, cohesion force, and inclination angle for a slab of rock resting on an inclined surface. Students recreate spreadsheets shown in a Powerpoint module with formulas that answer various pieces of an overa
The importance of recess
How classroom elementary teachers can promote physical education.
1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire
The documents selected for this exhibit are primary sources that historians and other researchers study when they write about historical events. They are a selection from the files created or received by Federal agencies in or near San Francisco at the time of the disaster. They contain eyewitness testimony of the damage of the earthquake, the ensuing fires, and the desolation that was left in their wake.
Rock Identification
This hands-on activity covers the basics of rock identification. After a brief discussion of the terms 'rock' and 'mineral', students will study the characteristics and classifications of the three major rock groups (igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary).
F. Scott Fitzgerald: Winter Dreams
In this lesson plan, students study the biography and work of F. Scott Fitgerald. They learn how the author used autobiographical elements in writing his stories, and they try a hand at writing a Fitzgerald-style story with autobiographical elements of their own.
We'd Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover
Since the advent of book musicals such as "Show Boat" and "Oklahoma!", many Broadway shows have touched upon relevant social and historical issues. In this lesson, students will investigate how Broadway musicals can reflect the times in which they were created. Students will examine video clips and Web sites related to relevant productions, study song lyrics, and compare and contrast actual history with Broadway history. By becoming "historical detectives," they will determine how accurately Bro
Data Collection and Organization
The Data Collection and Organization (DC&O) text module provides background on useful, general-purpose software tools. The aim is to discuss types of generic software that virtually every well-equipped scientist uses. This includes: spreadsheets, database programs, statistics packages, graphics programs, and word processors.
DC&O includes several examples of the use of these tools in biology. These include 'An Embryological Example with Tips and Tricks' and the complete text and dataset of a cl
Organ Weight Study in Rats
This dataset comes from a study of 90 rats given one of 3 doses of a drug. At sacrifice, data on body weight and the weights of various organs were collected. Questions from this study refer to the relationship between dosage and body and organ weight. A text file version of the data is found in the relation link.
Intuitive Biostatistics: Choosing a Statistical Test
This page provides a table for selecting an appropriate statistical method based on type of data and what information is desired from the data. It also compares parametric and nonparametric tests, one-sided and two-sided p-values, paired and unpaired tests, Fisher's test and the Chi-square test, and regression and correlation. It comes from Chapter 37 of the textbook, "Intuitive Biostatistics".
Whatzzzup-Stream?
In this set of exercises, students will study rivers and waterways around them by using the Internet, maps, and their knowledge of local landscapes. The students will use an EPA Web site to investigate what is upstream and downstream of them. They will also look at graphs of flow in familiar river locations on a live U.S. Geological Survey Web site. Using small rocks and a washbasin, students will build a model that leads to extending their understanding of streams in different geographic locati
Hard Times
The US stock market crash of 1929 set off the most severe economic depression in the Western world. The so-called Great Depression lasted more than a decade, until approximately 1941. In the United States, the general atmosphere was one of desolation, as expressed in the Dorothea Lange photograph "Thirteen Million Unemployed Fill the City in the Early Thirties," which shows men leaning against a wall in San Francisco. Many photographs in this topic were taken by Lange, one of the primary chronic
