Energy at Earth Portal

Here's another great article from Earth Portal. Fundamental principles of energy offers and excellent overview of energy, with top notch graphics and an examination of the basics of energy science.

Earth Portal and Earth Encyclopedia alway include very helpful reading lists, but this one is exception in its scope and its depth. The Energy further reading section is extensive and inclusive from energy and economics to conflict, to environment and health.

Lifelong learners should find this an extremely beneficial resource.

Freshwater at the Encyclopedia of Earth

Lifelong learners can find excellent material in the article Freshwater published on the Encyclopedia of Earth. The further reading section has links to three additional websites devoted to earth's freshwater.

You will learn about freshwater, from its definition to its inventory and on to freshwater use around the earth.

A very useful addition to our learning resources.

Anthropology at Palomar College

Anthropology Tutorials pages at Palomar College offer lifelong learners extensive biological and cultural anthropology tutorials.

This an extremely resource-rich site. In addition to in-depth information on each sub-topic, many of them also have practice quizzes, flashcards and a Related Internet Sites page. In additional learners have access to a good glossary of terms, with audio pronunciation.

The "how anthropologists do their work" topics give very helpful insight.

Lifelong learners interested in anthropology will want to add this study material to their learning toolbox.

Political Philosophy at Yale

Open Yale Courses offers an excellent Fall 2006 course to lifelong learners, called PLSC 114: Introduction to Political Philosophy.

This course makes available a full set of materials for each class session, including audio, video and online readings.

Course description:

"This course is intended as an introduction to political philosophy as seen through an examination of some of the major texts and thinkers of the Western political tradition. The course will focus on three broad themes that are central to understanding political life: the polis experience (Plato, Aristotle), the sovereign state (Machiavelli, Hobbes), constitutional government (Locke), and democracy (Rousseau, Tocqueville). Particular attention will focus especially on the way in which different political philosophies have given expression to various forms of political institutions and our ways of life."

This course is a nice addition to the resources of lifelong learners with an interest in political philosophy.

Biodiversity in Africa

Want to understand another piece of the environmental puzzle? The Encyclopedia of Earth presents an in-depth view of Biodiversity in Africa that should be of great interest to lifelong learners interested in understanding the interactions of earth's environments.

This article gives an excellent overview, as well as an extensive reading list. I will just let the piece speak for itself, because it has an eloquent voice.

Cambridge Festival of Science 2008

Think you might need a few more lectures to add to your lifelong learning resources? Then, check out the 2008 Cambridge Festival of Science video and podcasts. There you'll find 29 lectures, ranging from Sustainable Energy-without hot air to Gifted Scientists and Autism: Is There a Connection.

These lectures are available in several formats and some have lecture slides available.

You might want to bookmark Cambridge Science Festival 2009. Cambridge celebrates its 800th birthday.

Quote of the Week #1

"A scholar must shape his own shell, secrete it, one might almost say, for secretion is only separation, you know, of certain elements derived from the materials of the world about us. And a scholar's study, with the books lining its walls, is his shell."--Oliver Wendell Holmes

Getting Ready for Year of Science 2009

The Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS) Year of Science 2009 is a great resource for lifelong learners and offers a way for us to get involved in the promotion of science in our society.

Don't miss the COPUS Blog. And you can sign up for updates from COPUS.

Also, launching in October 2008 is Understanding Science at the University of California at Berkeley. According to Understanding Science, speaking of the first phase of this project, "This content will be appropriate for teachers themselves and for the general public and will clarify what science is, how it works, and misconceptions about science. Concepts will be illustrated with both historical and modern exemplars."

Looks like something to keep an eye through the Year of Science.

Crayons for Creative Inspiration

Tired? Overwhelmed? Need some inspiration? Then head over to COLOURlovers Blog. This post from April 22, 2008 is all about 120 crayon names and color codes.

We all need a little color in our lives and this site was just recommended to me. I haven't explored much further than the blog, but I think it's going to be a favorite place to take a deep breath and enjoy the color.

Even when lifelong learners love what they're studying, sites like COLOURlovers can be a valuable source of inspiration.

Enjoy!

Centre for Editing Lives and Letters

Some great work is being done over at CELL, the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters. Of special note to lifelong learners, is the material available on the CELL Projects page. The Hooke Folio Online is an exceptional project. The introduction to it states, "In May 2006 a long lost manuscript of the papers of Robert Hooke was returned to the archive of the Royal Society. Lisa Jardine played a significant role in the recovery of the folio, which she described as 'an absolute treasure trove of new information about the day to day activities of the early scientific establishment'."

Lisa Jardine has done some great work, including On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Life and Tumultuous Times of Sir Christopher Wren, Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution and Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance.

Ingenious Pursuits is an excellent choice to start with, if you aren't familiar with her books. The biography of Christopher Wren was so welcome because it filled a gap in readily available materials on this most intriguing player in the history of science.

There are also some very interesting podcast titles available on the CELL Podcast page. However, I am having trouble opening them, so I'll have to get back to you on that.

Ground Water at USGS

Ground-Water Availability in the United States was published in July 2008 by the USGS. You can now download the 79-page pdf.

This report provides a wealth of information on our most important resource. From USGS: "This report examines what is known about the Nation's ground-water availability and outlines a program of study by the U.S. Geological Survey Ground-Water Resources Program to improve our understanding of ground-water availability in major aquifers across the Nation. The approach is designed to provide useful regional information for State and local agencies who manage ground-water resources, while providing the building blocks for a national assessment. The report is written for a wide audience interested or involved in the management, protection, and sustainable use of the Nation's water resources."

This should prove valuable to most lifelong learners.

Beyond the Human Genome Project

We recently talked about the Royal Society podcasts. So just an update here. Check out Beyond the human genome project by Eric Lander. It's listed under Chemistry & Biology, but I can't link directly to the video.

I've had some really positive feedback on this one. The lecture provides insight into the breakthroughs in DNA sequencing and the possibilities for the future.

Sounds like biology students are going to have some very interesting years ahead of them in fighting the some of the worst diseases we face.

Aldo Leopold at Earth Portal

Earth Portal's Topic of the Week is Environment in Focus: A Voice in the Wilderness by William Cronon. This article written in 1998, is introduced thus, "William Cronon pays tribute to a remarkable man and his book that altered forever the landscape of the environmental movement."

Cronon describes Sand County Almanac:

"Sand County is very different, which is probably why it feels as fresh today as it did when it was written-the mark of a true classic. To the first-time reader, it presents itself as an unprepossessing collection of nature writings, brief essays offering reminiscences of landscapes and encounters in natural places, all cast in a spare, lucid prose that is far more elegant and literary than polemical.

Only as one reads more deeply into the book does one begin to recognize the arguments and insights that lie almost between the lines, or appreciate the quiet passion that informs its call for a new human sense of moral responsibility toward the natural world. The voice is that of a first-rate scientist and naturalist, a cool-eyed observer not just of nature but of the human condition, and the tone is far more meditative and ironic than polemical or belligerent. One gets the sense that the author would be much happier getting out into the woods with his dog than finding himself mounting the barricades on behalf of a political cause.

And yet these little essays bespeak nothing less than a revolution in ways of thinking about the human place in nature - a revolution as yet unfinished, but very near the heart of environmental politics in the second half of the 20th century and beyond. By putting into words the deep questions and concerns that would persuade millions of Americans to join the environmental movement in the years after its author’s death, A Sand County Almanac earned itself an indelible place in history."

In addition to the moving essay by Cronan, you will find many links to supplemental reading, related News in Focus articles and website links. Please be sure to follow the link to the Aldo Leopold Archives at the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections.

There is a wealth of study material here for the lifelong learner looking for environmental history resources. Enjoy!

Impacts on Native American Lands

This is a very good collection of study materials from Carleton College, Integrating Research and Education, called Impacts of Resource Development on Native American Lands.

It covers six case studies:

• Uranium Mining on the Navajo Nation
• Gold Mining and the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation
• Coal Bed Methane and the Crow Reservation
• Water Resources and the Nez Perce Indian Reservation
• Gold Mining and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
• Resources of the Pribilof Islands

This actually just one part of many sections of Integrating Research and Education, including one on Hurricane Katrina and the Yellowstone Geoecosystem.

I think lifelong learners will find this to be a very nice addition to their study resources.

Serendipity at Darwin College

What a wonderful find! This 2008 series about Serendipity is truly a delight to listen to. These lectures provide insight into the part that serendipity has played in astronomy, archaeology, biology, a writer's life, politics, physics and anthropology. They are made available by Darwin College at Cambridge University.

Please note that the first lecture is Serendipity's Guide to the Galaxy by Andy Fabian, so they are listed in reverse order on the Darwin Lecture Series - Podcast page. I mention this because, the introduction to Andy Fabian's lecture provides a bit of background about the lectures.

The speakers also include Richard Leakey and Simon Winchester. I won't diminish your enjoyment of Simon Winchester's The Unanticipated Pleasures of the Writing Life by telling his first story, but you will enjoy it.

This is an extremely enjoyable, as well as educational, resource for lifelong learners.

A.P. European History

This course from historyteacher.net is not a college course, but a high school Advanced Placement European History course. However, it contains an enormous amount of study material.

Many, many primary document links are most welcome. Plus links to appropriate subject websites are mostly active--only a few broken. Some great PowerPoint slides are also available.

You'll be glad you checked this one out. Have fun.