Ever wonder why we get the first Monday of September, of every year, off of school? The occasion is Labor Day, which we’ll celebrate this coming September 6th, 2010. It’s more than a prelude to the end of summer or the start of the football season. Labor Day is a federal holiday “. . . dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.” (US Dept. of Labor)
In honor of workers everywhere, learn about Labor Day and/or labor history this year!
As we enter the heart of summer, I thought it would be appropriate to send along this video from Talk of the Nation’s Science Friday: Seeing A Star In A New Light. This is a pretty cool video from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) that was launched in February.
It’s summer! The weather is ripe for camping, hiking, biking, fishing, and other types of outdoor fun. Take some time to enjoy the natural resources (and otherwise) this state has to offer! Here are some websites to help you play smart!
Recently, on a trip out west, I visited The Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) at one of their locations in Wendover, Utah. CLUI is a research/educational organization that investigates how humans interact with terrestrial space and attempt to understand the broader consequences of these interactions. As they state on their website, “We believe that the manmade landscape is a cultural inscription, that can be read to better understand who we are, and what we are doing.”
CLUI maintains a Land Use Database, which is ” . . . a free public resource, designed to educate and inform the public about the function and form of the national landscape, a terrestrial system that has been altered to accommodate the complex demands of our society.” The database focuses on the United States and several categories of land use including transportation, water, cultural, industrial, mining, waste, military, nuclear/radioactive, and research & development. You can browse by state or category or submit a keyword query.
The following information was sent to us from the libraries at Western Illinois University:
Through an award from the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) , the Western Illinois University Libraries and Illinois State Library have digitized many volumes of the Laws of Illinois; some of the volumes were digitized through Google’s books digitization project and the Hathi Trust Digital Library.Linda Zellmer, Government Publications & Data Services Librarian, Western Illinois University, has put together a web site with links to this set at:
Over the past decade, Google has morphed into THE superpower technology company. It has become ingrained in our lives. From search, to gmail, to youtube, to advertising, to a whole list of other online tools, Google plays a huge part in our lives and economy. That being said, Google knows a whole lot about you. Google has done a few things in recent years to help promote free speech on the Internet. They are not perfect, but they also are not controlling as they might be.
Well, one interesting site that I wanted to send along is a new site: Google’s Government Trends Request. Google has received 3850 request for data from US government agencies. They have had 123 request for the removal of information by these agencies. You can see how other countries of the world compare. I applaud Google for making this information public. This is the sort of open information that our society needs for a health debate about Internet policy.
If you are studying or working in the field of education, you should know about The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). This government entity’s website is chocked full of information–reports, data, and statistics– about everything from early childhood to post-secondary and adult education in the U.S. and other nations.
