Plant Evolution Timeline.

This is a semantic web tool designed primarily to aid Plant Scientists studying at the university of Cambridge with their learning of plant evolution. The public site is a cut-down version of the full tool, which contains some copyrighted information.

http://www.ensemble.ac.uk/projects/plantsci/timeline/

Academic Earth

Academic Earth provides videos of lectures by top scholars in "Subjects" that range from Astronomy to Entrepreneurship to Religion, from "Universities" as celebrated as MIT, Berkeley, Harvard, and Stanford. Visitors must register to view the lectures, but registration is free. There are over 1500 video lectures available, with more being added everyday. In addition to viewing the lectures available by subject or university, visitors can choose by "Instructors" or by "Playlists".  When visitors click on "Playlists" at the top of the homepage, they will see a list of lectures by theme, by several different instructors, and a grade given to the lecture series.  A good example is the 6-part lecture entitled "Understanding the Financial Crisis" by four different instructors.  The series is given a grade overall, in this case, an A-, and when visitors click on "See all 6 lectures" at the bottom of the series' description, they will be taken to the page with the links to the individual lectures, as well as shown the grade given each individual lecture.  Visitors can even keep a playlist of their favorite lectures or download the lectures.  Visitors should definitely check out the Frequently Asked Questions page, accessible by the "FAQ" link at the bottom of the website.

http://academicearth.org/

from The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2009.
http://scout.wisc.edu/

Evolution Resources from the National Academies

In 1859, Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species", and in doing so, he introduced the concept of evolution by natural selection to the world. To honor the 150th anniversary of this event, the National Academies recently redesigned their evolution resources website. In doing so, they created a number of new sections for educators, businesspeople, and attorneys. The "Introduction" area is a fine place to start, and here visitors can find brief summaries of evolution in agriculture, industry, and medicine. The "Definitions" area offers up some short and incisive definitions of relevant evolutionary terms including "adaptation", "DNA", and "trait". Students and teachers alike will want to peruse the "Books and Reports" area. Here they will find full-text reports such as "Science, Evolution, and Creationism" and "Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origins". The site is rounded out by a list of upcoming events.

http://nationalacademies.org/evolution/index.html

from The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2009.
http://scout.wisc.edu/

National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 "to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…"

http://www.nsf.gov/index.jsp

NASA Images

NASA Images is a service of Internet Archive ( www.archive.org ), a non-profit library, to offer public access to NASA's images, videos and audio collections. NASA Images is constantly growing with the addition of current media from NASA as well as newly digitized media from the archives of the NASA Centers. The goal of NASA Images is to increase our understanding of the earth, our solar system and the universe beyond in order to benefit humanity.

http://www.nasaimages.org/

Agriculture, Climate Change, and Carbon Sequestration

The National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service produces new and compelling research on the world of sustainable agriculture and organic farming. Recently, specialists Jeff Schahczenski and Holly Hill wrote this 16-page paper on "the relationship between agriculture, climate change and carbon sequestration." Broadly speaking, the paper looks at the science of climate change and also answers questions such as "How does agriculture influence climate change?" and "How does climate change influence agriculture?". Using a range of graphics and charts, the report answers some of these timely questions along with pointing the way forward to how farmers and the government might work on subsidizing positive behavior regarding carbon taxes and other matters.  The report is a thoughtful one, and it's something that policy specialists and those with an interest in agriculture will want to pass along to their colleagues.

http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/carbonsequestration.pdf
From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2009.
http://scout.wisc.edu/

Teaching Geologic Map Interpretation with Google Earth

The Structural Geology Resources Collection at Carleton College presents a wide cornucopia of material, and this latest addition adds another new facet to their collection. These two new resources utilize Google Earth in order to help college students learn about geologic map interpretation, and they were created by Barbara Tewskbury at Hamilton College and Charlie Onasch at Bowling Green State University.  After reading the brief introduction to these two instructional resources, visitors can click on each one to learn about their respective goals and methodology.

http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/structure/teaching_geo_map_interp.html
From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2009.
http://scout.wisc.edu/