http://historicalthinkingmatters.org/
    
The Historical Thinking Matters website is an excellent resource for teachers and students who hope to learn about the importance of the historical perspective. Created by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and their colleagues at Stanford University, the site will help students learn "to interrogate historical sources and use them to form reasoned conclusions about the past." New users may wish to start with the "Why Historical Thinking Matters" section, which offers a short film about the Battle of Lexington in 1775. Moving on, the "Student Investigations" area contains four investigations of topics from post-Civil War history, including the Scopes Trial, the creation of Social Security, and Rosa Parks. Finally, the site is rounded out by a solid set of resources for instructors, complete with examples of teacher and student work. [KMG]

http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/expeditions/

Expeditions and discoveries from 1626 to 1953 are the topic of one of Harvard University's latest online collections. Maps, photographs, field notes, and letters are a few of the types of materials the website showcases. Scholars, researchers, educators, the general public, and "students of anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, botany, geography, geology, medicine, oceanography, and zoology" will find these resources to be useful and insightful. Visitors should start out with the "Scope" tab to learn what the site has, including "Featured Exhibitions", "Published and Unpublished Materials", and "Selections and Exclusions". The "Featured Exhibitions" are also listed with their date and location, on the left hand side of the any page. Visitors wishing to "Browse" the collection can choose from "Additional Expeditions", "Images", "Maps", "Notable People", "Topics and Disciplines", as well as a few other categories. Per the "Help" page, the three ways to search the site are Catalog, Full-Text, and Site. An explanation is given of the limits and benefits of each, and links to tips on the specific types of searches are also given. [KMG]

To find this resource and more high-quality online resources in math and science visit Scout's sister site - AMSER, the Applied Math and Science Educational Repository at http://amser.org.

http://www.archives.gov/foia/

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) website, part of the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) has been making it easy for journalists, scholars, activists, or any interested party with the statutory right, to get U.S. government information in executive branch agency records. Visitors interested in getting some information, should first read the "FOIA Reference Guide", which can be accessed via the link in the menu on the top left side of any page. The "FOIA Reference Guide" provides the proper way to make a FOIA request. Users can learn more about "Other FOIA Resources" via the link in the menu on the left side, in the bottom corner. There are a couple of links to other government agencies' information on FOIA, as well as a link to a pamphlet called "Your Right To Federal Records" and a link to "A Citizen's Guide to Using the Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act of 1974 to Request Government Records". [KMG]

To find this resource and more high-quality online resources in math and science visit Scout's sister site - AMSER, the Applied Math and Science Educational Repository at http://amser.org.

http://dspace.sunyconnect.suny.edu/

The State University of New York (SUNY) system has created this digital repository (known as "DSpace") to facilitate access to the digital collections created by various schools in its system. First-time visitors may want to sign up to receive email updates and create their own personalized profiles where they can save items of note for future reference. On the homepage, visitors can peruse the "Communities in DSpace" area to look over the offerings from institutions like the Fashion Institute of Technology, Stony Brook University, and SUNY College at Oswego. Visitors may wish to look through the Fashion Institute of Technology's collection, as they will find excellent examples of student work from a variety of fashion-related fields. Moving on, the left-hand side of the homepage contains a series of links that gives users the opportunity to browse by author, title, subject, or issue date. [KMG]

To find this resource and more high-quality online resources in math and science visit Scout's sister site - AMSER, the Applied Math and Science Educational Repository at http://amser.org.

http://westernsoundscape.org/

You can get a good sense of the American West by reading authors as diverse as Sherman Alexie, Mark Twain, John McPhee, but can they really accurately describe the sounds of a resting short-eared owl? Perhaps, but if you're looking to listen to the natural world of the Western states, you should probably click on over to the Western Soundscape Archive website. This aural database is housed at the University of Utah's J. Willard Marriott Library and features recordings contributed by state and federal agencies, conservation groups, and dedicated volunteers. Started in 2007, the archive continues to grow, and currently they have representative sounds from approximately 80% of the West's bird species and 90% of the region's frog and toad species. Visitors can get started here by taking a listen to the "Featured Sound" on the homepage and then move on over to the search engine. The site also has weekly podcasts, and a number of thematic sound collections, like the "Sounds of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge". Overall, it's a tremendously well-presented site, and one that will be of interest to naturalists, scholars, and many others. [KMG]

To find this resource and more high-quality online resources in math and science visit Scout's sister site - AMSER, the Applied Math and Science Educational Repository at http://amser.org.

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/henryviii/index.html

Henry VIII was a man of many passions and pursuits, and during his life he made maps, engaged in the sporting life, and was known to dabble in religious matters in a fashion that would have widespread ramifications. The British Library has created this fine online exhibit gallery to complement an in situ exhibit on this 16th century monarch. The materials on the site are divided into seven sections, including "The Great Matter", "Musician, sportsman, worshipper", and "Militarist and mapmaker". Visitors might do well to start with "The Great Matter", as it offers a nice selection of primary documents related to Henry's struggle to divorce Katherine of Aragon so that he might be able to marry Anne Boleyn. It's worth noting that visitors can zoom in and out within each digitized object. Moving on, the "Interactive" feature allows users to read notes that Henry himself added to three key documents created during his reign. [KMG]

http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2009/RAND_TR675.pdf

Addressing the needs of students who are coping with the aftereffects of trauma can be most difficult, and this recent program manual from the RAND Organization may be useful those who work with such individuals. This 200-page manual was authored by Lisa H. Jaycox, Audra K. Langley, and Kristin L., and offers an overview of the Support for Students Exposed to Trauma (SSET) program, which is "a series of ten lessons whose structured approach aims to reduce distress resulting from exposure to trauma." The manual starts with a discussion of how SSET works, and then goes to describe how group work with students might work, and various assignments that group members might undertake as part of the SSET program. The report continues with the ten lesson plans and a set of additional materials and worksheets. [KMG]

http://www.lib.umd.edu/digital/record.jsp?pid=umd:50498

Civil War history buffs and others will be excited to learn about this latest addition to the Digital Collections at the University of Maryland website. This particular item happens to be the sketchbook of one John Jacob Omenhausser, who was imprisoned at the Union prison camp in Point Lookout, Maryland from June 1864 to June 1865. Omenhausser's sketches depict the full range of activities around the camp, and they are particularly noteworthy because of his humorous asides and watercolors. All told, the sketchbook contains 67 pages, and visitors can use the book viewer here to zoom in and out around each drawing. It's a rather engaging item, and visitors shouldn't miss the watercolor on page three depicting a rather risible exchange between a military officer and several others in the camp. [KMG]