Wood's Hole Ocenaographic Institution

"The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is dedicated to research and education to advance understanding of the ocean and its interaction with the Earth system, and to communicating this understanding for the benefit of society.WHOI is the largest private non-profit oceanographic institution in the world."

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7016

Global Invasive Species Database

"Aims to increase awareness about invasive alien species and to facilitate effective prevention and management activities. It is managed by the Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG) of the Species Survival Commission of IUCN (the International Union for Conservation of Nature)"

http://www.issg.org/database/welcome/

Undergraduate Research Ethics Cases

How do you help undergraduate students learn about research ethics? Well you might try the three case studies developed by the University of Delaware's Undergraduate Science Education Program and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute designed to help students learn about this important subject. On this site, visitors will find the following studies: "Tripped Up", "Helping Hand", and "Organic Reactions". Each study describes a potentially tricky or nuanced ethical conundrum that an undergraduate student might encounter. For example, "Tripped Up" involves a student whose scientific results are "too hot for public consumption" and is told by his supervisor that he cannot present the findings at a national meeting. Each case study is complemented by a set of discussion questions and additional resources.

http://www.udel.edu/chem/white/HHMI3/EthicsCases.html

From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2012. http://scout.wisc.edu/

"Garage Demos": Physical models of Biological Processes

Professor Diane O'Dowd is known for the creative classroom techniques she uses in her introductory biology courses at the University of California, Irvine. One day she will show up with tennis balls designed to stand in for hydrogen ions or with her daughter's old Halloween wig, which stands in for a membrane vesicle. This website provides visitors with fabulous examples of her work, known as "Garage Demos". The name comes from the fact that the materials for the demonstrations come from Professor O'Dowd's garage.

Currently, the site contains ten different demonstrations, including "Tennis Ball Buffer", "Garden Hose Plasmid", and "Styrofoam Blood Cells". The videos are all linked on YouTube, so visitors can even create their own playlist.The site is rounded out by demonstrations by Professor Richard Losik at Harvard and several other demonstrations dealing with sickle cell anemia and membrane fluidity

http://www.researchandteaching.bio.uci.edu/lecture_demo.html

From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2012.http://scout.wisc.edu/

Primer on Probability

How did Gregor Mendel derive the Law of Segregation and the Law of Independent Assortment? Most budding geneticists know he used peas, but how exactly did he do it? This fine document from Professor Robert Merritt of Smith College provides explanations of Mendel's groundbreaking work, along with information on the basic rules of probability. The 20-page document was developed for "Your Genes, Your Chromosomes", a course that was offered through the Smith College Summer Science and Engineering Program. The document explains how to test a hypothesis using The Chi-Square Test, and also covers topics such as sex determination and sex linkage, blood group, and gene interaction. Finally, the document contains a detailed explanation of the basic rules of probability and a selection of sample problems

http://www.hhmi.org/coolscience/resources/SPT--DownloadFile.php?Id=3

From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2012. http://scout.wisc.edu/

Electrochemical Energy Systems

The OpenCourseWare Initiative (OCW) has produced many wonderful free course materials on urban planning, philosophy, engineering, and mathematics. This recent offering from MIT's OCW collection presents material from the spring 2011 version of "Electrochemical Energy Systems". Taught by Professor Martin Bazant, the course "introduces principles and mathematical models of electrochemical energy conversion and storage." On this page, visitors can download and peruse the syllabus, read through the course calendar, and take a look at the lecture notes. The notes cover 39 different topics, including statistical thermodynamics, forced convention in fuel cells, and ion concentration polarization. Also, visitors are welcome to look over the problem sets and provide feedback on the course.
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/chemical-engineering/10-626-electrochemical-energy-systems-spring-2011/

From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2012. http://scout.wisc.edu/