Southwest Crossroads

If you're a lifelong learning searching for resources about the Southwest United States, the go take a look at Southwest Crossroads which describes its website, "Southwest Crossroads: Cultures and Histories of the American Southwest is a dynamic, interactive, on-line learning matrix of original texts, poems, fiction, maps, paintings, photographs, oral histories, and films that allows users of all ages to explore the many contentious stories that diverse peoples have used to make sense of themselves and the region."

It's also a great website for teachers, since the material can easily be used for classes.

Arizona Geology Blog

Whether you live in Arizona or not, if you're a lifelong learner studying geology, then this blog, Arizona Geology, will be a resource you'll want to check often.

Lee Allison, who writes this blog, is State Geologist and Director, Arizona Geological Survey and he is very dedicated in his posting.

Not just an excellent source of geology news and information, Arizona Geology provides us with a great dose of optimism. You can tell that geology is more than a job to Lee Allison.

You can read his first blog post, Arizona lives and dies by its geology, on Monday, January 01, 2007.

Hallie Eakin at Encylopedia of Earth

Earth Portal's Topic of the Week Environment in Focus: Human vulnerability to global environmental change by Hallie Eakin is a must read for lifelong learners with a passion for learning about environmental change and the human population.

This is just one article in a long list of environmental topics available at the Encyclopedia of Earth.

History at Boise State

History courses by Dr. E.L. Skip Knox can be accessed at Boise State University. You'll find four courses:

• History of Western Civilization
• The Crusades
• The Late Middle Ages
• The Reformation

Lots of good material here for lifelong learners. Be sure to check the copyright page.

On the Origin of Species

Ever stumble across a book that just grabs you and you can't get it out of your mind? That happened to me at Barnes and Noble last week. Yes, I know that those of you who have been reading The Everyday Scholar for awhile realize that I have a thing about books. Some would say that I've never met a book that I couldn't find something good to say about it. But....

This new On the Origin of Species: The Illustrated Edition, edited by David Quammen really is fantastic! For visual lifelong learners out there, the new illustrated edition will change the way you think about this Charles Darwin classic. It is so readable! The illustrations are so perfect for the text. And the graphics showing pages from The Voyage of the Beagle tie together his thoughts during that voyage with his conclusions in the Origin. For everyone else, you'll be impressed also.

Please put this on your lifelong learner's wish list and let everyone know its what you want for your next gift-giving occasion. You won't be sorry.

PhysicalGeography.net

If you need more material for physical geography study, take a look at the website that Dr. Michael Pidwirny is developing. Though still under construction, PhysicalGeography.net already offers quite a bit of material, including the Fundamentals of Physical Geography ebook.

This looks like it is going to be an excellent portal to physical geography on the Internet. Be sure to check out the links for each chapter of the ebook. Add this one to your learner's toolbox if you're interested in geography.

Geology of National Parks at Salem State

Here's a great geology for non-majors course: Geology of National Parks GLS110 01, Fall 2008. This one includes an enormous amount of excellent material. Professor Lindley Hanson uses Annenberg's Earth Revealed geology videos as a core to present the geological history of the United States and its national parks.

Be sure to follow all the links to available material. You don't want to miss anything here.

Scottish Enlightenment at OpenLearn

Open University makes many of its courses available through OpenLearn. One extremely interesting course is Science in the Scottish Enlightment.

This is a good introductory course, a jumping off point to more indepth study for lifelong learners.

History of China At UC Berkeley

If you're searching for a framework within which to put your introductory study of the history of China, you might want to consider a course at the University of California at Berkeley. Professor Michael Nylan teaches this course, History 6A - Fall 2008 History of China: Origins to the Mongols.

This course is not podcast, so it is actually just a framework, but it does have a complete reading list, including books for further reading. With a little Google research, you should be able to find some of the additional reading material from the course reader which is not available, but the author and title of the articles are given.

This should be a good resource for lifelong learners interested in the history of China.

EBooks at Encyclopedia of Earth

Lifelong learners can find a nice selection of environmental ebooks at The Encyclopedia of Earth EBooks.

Environmental Classics offer access to online versions of several historical ebooks, including Walden by Henry David Thoreau, Theory of the Earth by James Hutton and Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett James Hardin.