The University of Missouri Digital Library has a range of digital collections covering much of the fine Show Me State, along with other regions of the United States and the globe. This particular collection brings together key documents that tell the story of British religious, legal, and political history from the 1600s to the 1800s. Visitors can browse at their leisure or perform complex searches across the entire collection. It is impressive indeed, as it contains over 20,000 items that were purchased by the university beginning in 1943. Many of these documents were published anonymously, due to their possibly inflammatory and controversial subject matter. It's fun to just look around, as visitors can find items like the 1642 pamphlet "What kinds of Parliament will please the King" and 1643's "A Second Complaint: being an honest letter to a doubtfull friend, about the rifling of the twentieth part of his estate." [KMG]

The University of Houston has increased its digital offerings in recent years to allow visitors to make their way through everything from home retail pamphlets from the 1920s to copper plate engravings from Theodor de Bry's "Grandes Voyages." This particular collection offers users access to 80 different menus from the 1850s and 1860s. The menus are taken from establishments that were located all over the country, such as the American Hotel in Buffalo and the Allyn House in Hartford. It's quite a revelation to learn that on March 5, 1859, the patrons at the Allyn House would have had access to over 35 menu options, including oyster fritters and halibut. Culinary historians and gastronomy types will have a field day with these menus, which might inspire a rather elaborate repast.

The transit of Venus is a rare astronomical event that has been well documented throughout history. The most recent transit occurred in June of 2004, and the one before that took place more than 100 years earlier in 1882. This site from the South African Astronomical Observatory provides information and first-hand observations of the 1882 event from Wellington, South Africa. Just prior to the event, an observatory was erected at the Huguenot Seminary for girls, and some of the historical observations made from that site in 1882 are provided here for your perusal.

Interviewee: Paul Lombardo DNAi Location:Chronicle>Trial of Carrie Buck>outcome Carrie's sterilization in context. Carrie's one-hour sterilization took place in 1927, the same year that Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs and Charles Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic.

During the 19th century, the ever-popular trade card was a way for American businesses to effectively promote their goods and services. Some examples include a colorful business card depicting freshly caught mackerel in a net (appropriately enough for "Deep Sea Mackerel") and the Charter Oak Lawn Mower, which feature two Victorian women enjoying a leisurely mowing session in a pastoral setting. This online collection was created by Harvard Business School's Baker Library, which happens to have over 8000 of these cards. The online archive contains around 1000 cards which date from the 1870s to the 1890s. Visitors can search this archive via Harvard's Visual Information Access (VIA) union catalog which will allow them to focus in on subjects of particular interest. Finally, visitors can also avail themselves of the site's digital exhibition entitled "A New and Wonderful Invention: The Nineteenth-Century American Trade Card".

Over a century ago, Yiddish theater was all the rage in New York and other major American cities with a sizable Jewish population. A wide range of well known performers (such as Paul Muni and Leonard Nimoy) cut their teeth on these stages. Of course, the 2nd Avenue corridor in New York City held many of these Yiddish theaters and this site from the New York University Libraries seeks "to capture the memory and to convey the feel of 2nd Avenue as a living part of the history and culture of New York and America." Visitors to the site can browse around the Multimedia area to listen to oral histories or check out some video clips. The Photos area includes a history of Yiddish theater in New York along with several family photo albums. The site is rounded out by a collection of related radio programs and stations.

In this physics activity, learners build their own rockets out of film canisters and construction paper. Learners discover how a chemical reaction (from a mix of water and Alka-Seltzer) creates gas pressure to propel the craft. The activity explores the three states of matter and Newtonäóťs Laws of Motion.

In this activity, learners build small indoor paper rockets, determine their flight stability, and launch them by blowing air through a drinking straw. This lesson plan includes procedures for the two part activity, background information, diagrams for making Ares 1 paper rockets, discussion questions, extensions, and black-line masters for learners.

In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Memphis to support striking sanitation workers. On the evening of April 3, King delivered his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech to strikers and their supporters. The very next day, he was assassinated. This site takes visitors through the experiences of those who were there and also through the words of Dr. King during his time in Memphis. Visitors can find video clips, a chronology of the 1968 strike, and a transcript of King's famous speech.

Born in 1828 in Nunda, New York, Andrew J. Russell worked as a portrait and landscape painter as a young man. In 1862, he organized a local militia unit for service in the Civil War and he learned the craft of photography along the way. Several years later in 1868, he began a project to document the construction of the Union Pacific railroad during its long march to its meeting point with the Central Pacific in Promontory Point, Utah. Russell made three trips west in 1868 and 1869, and he made several hundred plate negatives as part of his extensive work. The Yale Collection of Western Americana has a great deal of his work, and this digital collection brings together a diverse set of these materials for consideration by the public. On the site, visitors can browse through these images, which include bridge construction photographs, shots of the surrounding landscapes, and men at work.

A video from the Extreme Ice Survey in which Dr. Tad Pfeffer and photographer Jim Balog discuss the dynamics of the Columbia glacier's retreat in recent years through this time-lapse movie. Key point: glacier size is being reduced not just by glacial melting but due to a shift in glacial dynamics brought on by climate change.

While some may harbor antiquated and erroneous impressions of librarians, those in the know can attest that these invaluable professionals like to get out and about just like their kinfolk in other learned professions. There is ample historical proof of this fact offered by this website, which contains a selection of digitized documents from the American Library Association (ALA) Archives, housed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Currently, the digitized collections include the F.W. Saxon Photographs Collection and the Library Building Photographs Collection. The Saxon Collection includes over 170 group pictures of librarians attending the ALA conferences in the US and Canada from the period 1894 to 1932. The Library Building Collection is quite intriguing, as it contains 78 postcards of libraries from locales such as Gadsden, Alabama.

This activity lets you program your 'robot' (a willing friend) to pick up and dispose of some 'toxic waste' using as few commands as possible. Learners create command cards (Turn Left, Right, Forward 1, etc.), mark out a simulation area on the floor, and try to get the "robot" to dispose of something that serves as "toxic waste" into something that serves as a "containment vessel" - in as few steps as possible. Strategy, predication and cooperation are all part of this activity.

In this activity, learners will listen to as many radio stations as possible to discover that AM radio signals can travel many hundreds of miles at night. Learners log the call signs, locations, and quality of the transmissions on a data table. This resource includes information about how AM radio transmissions differ at day and night, the ionosphere, the history of call letters, and NOAA Weather Radio. Note: this activity must be completed during the evening or early in the morning before sunrise and learners must have access to an AM radio.

This web site hosts the materials for an annual middle school competition that consists of four physical science experiments centered on a mystery. The experiments are designed for small groups in a classroom or after school setting. Each of the experiments gives students a clue to solve the mystery. The current year's competition is available to join and the materials from previous years are available for download.

This web site has links to the materials for the 2006 Physics Quest middle school competition, hosted by the APS. The 2006 lesson covers static electricity, conductors and insulators, heat, and optics. These are connected to the life and science of Benjamin Franklin. The experiments are designed for small groups in a classroom or after school setting. Each of the experiments gives students a clue to solve the mystery.

Setting out on the Caribbean today on a large vessel might involve boarding a massive cruise ship in Fort Lauderdale or Nassau in the Bahamas. Things were a bit different when Aaron Thomas set off on those same waters back in 1798. Thomas served on the HMS Lapwing during the French Revolutionary wars and his journal contains first-hand accounts of naval operations, customs of the day, and humorous anecdotes involving shipmates and superiors. This wonderful volume is physically located at the University of Miami Libraries Special Collections Division, but visitors can read the document on this site. One sample contains this chestnut of an observation: "Never stop at an Inn, nor go into a Shop to buy goods, if you see the Master has a Superfine Coat on." The document includes pen sketches, financial records, and graveyard epitaphs collected during Thomas's forays ashore. Visitors can click on the Biography area to learn more about Thomas and also use the Excerpts area to get a flavor for his prose style.

The abacus has been around for several thousand years, and it is an efficient and interesting counting machine. The standard abacus can be used to perform addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication, along with its use in extracting square roots and cubic roots. This site was created by Luis Fernandes, and it explores the wide world of the abacus through illustrations, thoughtful essays, and other items. On the site's homepage visitors can read a detailed introduction to the abacus, look over an interactive abacus tutorial, and learn about the history of the device. In the "Articles, Excerpts and Analysis" area visitors can read about an early encounter between the abacus and an electric calculator in 1946 and a hilarious encounter between famed physicist Richard Feynman and the abacus. The site is rounded out by the "All Things Abacus" area, which includes resources for teachers and photos of Fernandes' impressive abacus collection.

The Illinois Harvest Digital Collection presents a wide variety of cultural and historical materials related to the state of Illinois. The project began in 2006 and has resulted in many thousands of works being added to its rolls. This rather compelling corner of the collection presents over 1,400 publications related to Abraham Lincoln, with a discrete focus on biographies of the man, slavery, and the American Civil War. One particularly noteworthy title is the 1945 work, "Intimate Memories of Lincoln." This piece, a compilation of anecdotes from people who knew Lincoln well, is quite an intriguing read. Visitors, particularly those who love American history and related subjects, will find they can easily wander around this collection for hours.

Let̢ĺŰĺŞs face it: economia to those great heroes of the past are nothing new, and some might believe that there are too many out there in the first place. The Academy of Achievement website disproves this idea with its well-thought out tributes to those truly unique individuals who have made substantive contributions in the arts, the sciences, and a number of other areas of human endeavor. As its site notes, it is a ̢ĺŰĺĎmuseum of living history̢ĺŰĺ, and a cursory glance over those they have honored would seem to bear witness to this statement. First-time visitors will definitely want to take a look at the ̢ĺŰĺĎAchiever Gallery̢ĺŰĺ, where they can view profiles and biographies of such personages as Jonas Salk, Rosa Parks, and Willie Mays. The real icing on the cake here is the interview section for each profiled member, as it truly allows for a number of interesting and evocative insights into their motivations and life trajectories. The site is rounded out with a ̢ĺŰĺĎFor Teachers̢ĺŰĺ section, which offers a number of pedagogical tools specifically aimed towards those in the teaching profession.

Includes information about the Academy of Natural Sciences educational programs: teacher resources, information for planning field trips to the museum and women in the natural sciences.

In this activity, students research scientific discoveries that happened by accident in the past, and learn how gamma-rays were discovered by 20th century scientists. In the process, students develop an understanding that science theories change in the face of new evidence. This acitivity is part of the "Swift: Eyes Through Time" collection that is available on the Teacher's Domain website.

This case was developed for use in the first semester of a sophomore organic chemistry laboratory to illustrate how a combination of techniques is usually required in the identification of chemical compounds. It involves a murder mystery with a forensic twist. Students are told that two bodies have recently been recovered from two different lakes. Due to a mix-up at the morgue, the coroner's office is unable to determine which body came from which lake. The students' task is to develop a methodology to solve this mystery as well as determine whether the deaths were the result of murder or mishap. The case could also be used in instrumental analysis courses or adapted for a non-majors course in the general education curriculum.

Located on Beacon Hill, the Boston Athenaeum is a distinguished private membership society that celebrates history and a myriad of other matters. This particular nook of its site brings together selections from its retrospective exhibition entitled, "Acquired Tastes: 200 Years of Collection for the Boston Athenaeum.̢ĺŰĺ The in situ exhibit included paintings, sculptures, maps, prints, photographs, and decorative arts and this complementary site offers visitors insights into the remarkable collection. Highlights include dramatic early views of Boston, a wonderful portrait of John Adams by Gilbert Stuart, and a view of Boston from 1848 as rendered from East Boston. Each view contains detailed bibliographic information, along with a few paragraphs of the significance of each item. Visitors may peruse three dozen items that offer insight into the collecting preferences of the Athenaeum over time.

In this activity, learners will evaluate seismic activity along major San Francisco faults using satellite images and a fault map of San Francisco. They will identify a location where new housing can be built that is as close to downtown as possible, but far away from active faults. Links to the image and map are provided. This activity is part of the Event-Based Science (EBS): Remote Sensing Activities.

In this activity, learners explore the concept of how engineering has made possible the development of--and ongoing improvements to--adaptive devices that serve to help individuals with a wide range of physical challenges adapt to the world and participate fully in society. Learners investigate the engineering process to solve problems, and work in teams to improve the design of a current or proposed adaptive device. Learners start with eyeglasses, disassembling, examining component design and shape, and reassembling. Then, learners re-engineer the product seeking improvements to the current product.

This 440-page report explores how students in pre-K through grade 8 learn mathematics, with a focus on number and operations, and recommends how teaching, curricula, and teacher education should change to improve mathematics learning. (A 39-page summary, Helping Children Learn Mathematics, is catalogued separately.) The authors identify five interdependent components of mathematical proficiency and describe how students develop this proficiency. The report presents a portrait of mathematics learning: research findings on what children know about numbers before they arrive in pre-K and the implications for instruction; details on the processes by which students acquire mathematical proficiency; what is known from research about teaching for mathematics proficiency and developing proficiency in teaching. Visitors to this website may read the full text online, download a copy (pdf), or purchase a hard copy.

The Adirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH) is the nonprofit historic preservation organization for New York State's Adirondack Park. Created in 1990, the organization protects a range of rustic buildings, along with a range of other places, including railroad buildings, quarries, and lighthouses. The 428 photos here are derived from an extensive slide collection which was digitized as part of the New York Heritage Digital Collections initiative. The Recent Additions section is a great place to start as it has images of small town buildings and dramatic military installations, such as Fort Ticonderoga.

Over the past decade, high-content analysis (HCA) has become widely adopted in both academic research and drug discovery laboratories. This webinar will discuss the pros and cons of the most commonly used imaging methods across a range of applications and highlight recent advances which promise to increase the power of HCA to answer more complex research questions and to yield deeper insights to advance the drug discovery process.

This collection is intended to provide scientific resources and information to help students explore paleontology and learn about research in the field of paleontology. It features a module that explores a variety of current topics in paleontology, including morphology, histology (the study of biological tissues), taphonomy (the study of preservation), and ichnology (the study of tracks and traces). It also addresses ethics issues in paleontology and includes links to some news articles on current research and discoveries.

Real-time, label-free cell analysis technology offers insight into a complex whole-cell response, leading to more physiologically relevant data that can offer a more complete phenotypic profile. In this webinar, a panel of experts discuss their research and describe the use of label-free, real-time monitoring in their investigation of novel targets for cancer drug discovery.

Interviewee: Mario Capecchi DNAi Location:Manipulation>Techniques>Model organisms>Interviews What's nice about the mouse? Mouse researcher Mario Capecchi talks about the similarities in mammalian anatomy and physiology.

This activity/demo introduces learners to aerogel, a glass nanofoam. Learners discover how aerogel is made and how well it insulates as well as learn about aerogel's other unique properties. Learners see real aerogel and feel how well it insulates.

The goal of the Afghanistan Digital Library at New York University is "to retrieve and restore the first sixty years of Afghanistan's published cultural heritage." This period, from 1871 to 1930, is of great importance as the earliest publications from this time frame are very rare and decades of war have not helped the situation. A team of scholars working at the National Archives in Kabul and NYU has helped to digitize a number of these documents for inclusion in this digital library. The project is sponsored by NYU Libraries, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and The Reed Foundation. Currently, the archive contains over 380 books, and visitors can browse them at their leisure. There is a search feature, but as the transliteration part of the project is still in development, visitors might just want to look around at items they find compelling. The viewer application is quite user-friendly, and visitors can zoom in to examine various details of each work.

Based at the East Central Georgia Regional Library, the African American Funeral Programs collection consists of over 1,000 funeral programs dated from 1933 to 2008. Most of the programs are from churches in Augusta, Georgia, and the surrounding area, with a few outliers coming from New York and Florida. These materials are tremendously important historical resources, as most programs contain a photograph of the deceased, an obituary, and a list of surviving relatives. Visitors can browse the collection by name, year of death, city, or funeral site. Additionally, they may wish to use the advanced search feature on the homepage. First-time visitors may wish to click on the featured obituary on the "From the collection" graphic. It's a remarkable collection and one that is worth passing along to friends and colleagues.

Many American cities were devastated by large fires in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Baltimore was no exception, and this fine digital collection from the Enoch Pratt Free Library offers publications, photos, and other ephemera related to the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904. The online collection includes over 250 images and 13 publications, including the final report of the Burnt District Commission, along with several initial draft reports. The fire was tragic, as it destroyed over 80 city blocks and hundreds of downtown Baltimore businesses. First-time visitors will want to start their journey here by perusing "The Book of the Fire," which can be found on the homepage. The photos are understandably quite dramatic, and they include images of the "New" Carrolton Hotel in ruins and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad central headquarters, which escaped the conflagration unscathed due to its fireproof construction. The image viewing software used here is quite good, and visitors can zoom in and out as they see fit. Also, visitors can perform an advanced search if they so wish.

Interviewee: Sydney Brenner DNAi Location:Code>Copying the code>players James Watson and RNA Sydney Brenner talks about James Watson's work on RNA.

The Mariners' Museum's curriculum guide with teaching activities that address maritime discoveries from ancient times to Captain Cook's 1768 voyage to the South Pacific. One of four online expeditions. Age of Exploration curriculum includes lesson plans, vocabulary, links to related sites, reference material, video, biographies of famous explorers, and more. Lessons include latitude and longitude, creating a compass, an astrolabe, and a globe, identifying the parts of a ship, plus 7 more.

In this activity (page 1 of PDF), learners will construct an air cannon by cutting a hole in the bottom of a bucket and stretching a garbage bag over the other end. Then, they aim the cannon at a paper target and try to knock it over by giving the plastic bag a good whack. Learners also experiment with hole size to make the cannon more effective. Relates to the linked video, DragonflyTV: Forecasting.