From the archives: the golden age of science publishing?

First posted February 2007, edited slightly.

On the "Golden Age" of children's science publishing: I'm just guessing but I think it started just after WWII and probably extended sometime into the sixties. I'm not talking so much about the little kids' Read-and-Find-Out books, although some of those are semi-classic too (like Benny's Animals And How He Put Them In Order), but something more; a collaboration between scientists, writers, and well-known (or well-known later) childrens' book illustrators. These books were written...let's say...to appeal to junior George Baileys ("Then I'm coming back here and go to college and see what they know…and then I'm going to build things"), Little Eddies, and Homer Prices. Kids like my dear Mr. Fixit who wanted to know how things worked, and who weren't scared off by having to read information instead of getting it delivered in multimedia format.

I picked up three books like this at the thrift shop last week. One is The Story of Sound, by James Geralton. (James Geralton is the pen name of Harvard physics professor emeritus Gerald Holton.) The illustrations are by Joe Krush; you might have seen Beth and Joe Krush's illustrations in The Borrowers or Gone-Away Lake. The cover is terrible, especially with the dustjacket missing; the title is boring (gee, thanks Uncle Max, just what I wanted, The Story of Sound).

But the text draws you in, keeps you interested, and teaches you something along the way. Some examples (they're not consecutive paragraphs):

Wind whistling through a forest may sound mysterious and frightening. But we can now explain that noise quite simply. When the wind hits a branch or a leaf, or a blade of grass, its smooth flow is broken up--just as the pillars of a bridge break the passing stream into small whirlpools and eddies. The eddies of water try to stay and hide right behind the pillars. The little eddies of air, too [no, not those Little Eddies], lie behind the twig or blade, leaf or telegraph wire, while the wind that rushes past pushes them lightly back and forth. The whirls of air vibrate to and fro behind their hiding place, like a flag on a stormy day that flutters from its pole. This vibration of whirling air sets up sound waves, just like any other vibration!

Hot gases, too, like the exhaust from the engine of a car, expand quite rapidly. To make one's automobile trips pleasanter a muffler is usually attached which lets the gas expand more slowly through a widening tube of metal. Thus the noise is deadened a little.

Now we have come to a large and interesting family of noises: those made by explosions! [ooh yeah]

The other two books are sixties paperback reprints of earlier books: Everyday Weather and How It Works, by Herman Schneider, illustrated by Jeanne Bendick; and Research Ideas for Young Scientists, by George Barr, illustrated by John Teppich. The George Barr book in particular is terrific and asks all kinds of questions that young scientists can find answers to: How far did your helium balloon travel? What accounts for the force of a collision? How quickly can you stop your bicycle? Does a blindfolded person walk in a circle? What is the traffic picture at a busy corner? [I'm visualizing Policeman Small here...] Why are ships pointed? How reliable is your camera's shutter?

"Have you been getting poor snapshots lately, even though you used the recommended exposure? Maybe your shutter speed is not what is supposed to be....The next time you use a roll of film, save your last shot for this test. Take a record player, with an extension cord, out into the bright sunlight. Use the standard 78-rpm speed. Place a 10- or 12-inch record on the turntable. Tape a thin white paper strip to the record from the center to the edge....[take a picture while it's going around]....When the picture is printed, measure the angle with a protractor--or compare it with the one shown in the diagram...."

Of course the experiments (like that one) are sometimes anachronistic; other experiments involve roller skates, milk bottles and "stapling machines" ("Dad, can I use that 'stapling machine' you have on your desk?" "Sure, Beaver"). But many of them are still workable; and some of them are more relevant than ever (How much water is wasted in your home?).

Moral: don't be scared off by boring titles or cover art showing tin-can phones; there's gold in some of them thar Golden Age books.

Quote for the day: For every fact is also a revelation

"Two things must be done by the modern nature writer who would first understand the animal world and then share his discovery with others. He must collect his facts, at first hand if possible, and then he must interpret the facts as they appeal to his own head and heart in the light of all the circumstances that surround them. The child will be content with his animal story, but the man will surely ask the why and the how of every fact of animal life that particularly appeals to him. For every fact is also a revelation, and is chiefly interesting, not for itself, but for the law or the life which lies behind it and which it in some way expresses. An apple falling to the ground was a common enough fact,—so common that it had no interest until some one thought about it and found the great law that grips alike the falling apple and the falling star." ~~ William J. Long, A Little Brother to the Bear

Quote for the day: how can you tell an honest person?

"If you ask [a person] intelligent questions--that is, penetrating, interested, honest, frank, direct questions on the subject, and no trick questions--then he quickly gets stuck. It is like a child asking naive questions. If you ask naive but relevant questions, then almost immediately the person doesn't know the answer, if it he is an honest man. It is important to appreciate that."  ~~ Richard Feynman, The Meaning of It All

Quote for the day: Richard Feynman on the value of knowledge

"It is only the principle of what you think will happen in a case you have not tried that is worth knowing about. Knowledge is of no real value if all you can tell me is what happened yesterday. It is necessary to tell what will happen tomorrow if you do something--not only necessary, but fun. Only you must be willing to stick your neck out." ~~ Richard Feynman, The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist

Book binge: Herman Wouk

I finished another book on the list: The Language God Talks, by Herman Wouk.

Quote for the day, for the scientists among us

From an article on Ernest Rutherford:

"That same year, he was awarded an 1851 Exhibition Science Scholarship, enabling him to go to Trinity College at the University of Cambridge as a research student at the Cavendish Laboratory under J.J. Thomson. There, he briefly held the world record for the distance over which wireless waves were detected. During the investigation of radioactivity, he coined the terms alpha, beta and gamma rays. In 1897, Rutherford was awarded his B.A. Research Degree and the Coutts-Trotter Studentship of Trinity College.

"When the Macdonald Chair of Physics at McGill University in Montreal became vacant in 1898, Rutherford left for Canada to take up the post. There, he did the work that gained him the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, demonstrating that radioactivity was the spontaneous disintegration of atoms. This is ironic given his famous remark, 'In science there is only physics; all the rest is stamp collecting.'"

Article found at AtomicArchive.com.

Education is a discipline: Mrs. Dowson and the great realities (Part Three)

Part One is here.  Part Two is here.

Abridged and slightly adapted from "The Discipline and Organization of the Mind,"  by Mrs. Dowson, L.R.C.P & S.,I. (Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Ireland), in The Parents' Review, Volume 11, 1900, pgs. 83-92

Mama Squirrel: You said that we are standing in peril if we either believe "excessively" everything we see, or if we disbelieve everything we don't see; that in fact "overbelieving" is a kind of superstition. Do you mean that we are trying to say that there is no meaning beyond the bare facts? How is it too much to believe in what you do see?

Professor Hinkle: You silly children believe everything you see. When you grow up, you'll realize that snowmen can't come to life.
Karen: But we...
Professor Hinkle: Silly, silly, silly! ( Frosty the Snowman)

Mrs. Dowson: It can get out of focus, out of right proportion. We need to offer science that includes the truths of experience as a whole...yes, they do need to be using their intellectual powers to be able to describe a thing with precision and with clearness, to say all that needs to be said about it and no more, to seize its characteristic differentia from similar things, and the essential points of its likeness to them, and to express the whole notion about it in just the right words. This too, like the power to observe accurately, is an accomplishment and will reveal, in its use, a pedant or a prig.

M.S. I have heard that somewhere else recently.

Mrs. Dowson:  We do need analysis, yes! It has its proper uses. It is only by a process of abstraction, by taking a thing out of its full context in the universe of things to which it is related, by cutting the bonds that tie it to all else and to its true meaning in relation to all else, that we are able to give it precise definition at all. But Nature--our experience of reality--defies our exactness and makes a mock of our descriptions; and unless we know she does our power to impose definitions upon the superficial bits of her that we gaze at in the contracted field of scientific sight must give us a false conception both of her and of ourselves and of our intellectual gains. The great realities of human life, moral and spiritual facts, are entirely beyond the reach of any such precise definition.

M.S.: So there is a danger of concentrating too much on only what is right in front of us?

Mrs. Dowson: There are also things that have their very being through mutual inclusion; and thus, they limit their mental field of view by an artificial horizon shutting out the most precious truths in the possession of mankind. But even greater than this danger is the rather lofty idea that our science-centred students will achieve the the splendid mental qualities developed, for example, in Darwin and Newton.

M.S.:  Isn't that a good goal to have?

Mrs. Dowson:. But the fine qualities displayed by Darwin and Newton are no more to the point in this matter than is the greatness of Caesar or of Wellington in connection with the educational value of learning the date of Waterloo or the successive stages of the Gallic War. Students do not acquire Wellington's powers of generalship by having a school acquaintance with his campaigns, or even by 'getting-up' his admirable Despatches; nor are they in the least degree more likely to gain the power of mental concentration and selection, and the sound judgment and untiring intellectual patience of Newton or of Darwin, through learning physics and biology even by a better method than that in vogue at the present time.

M.S.: You've named several points of both of character and of intellect: courage and wisdom; then sound judgment, intellectual patience and power. But as you say, knowing the facts of science does not give one the qualities of a scientist. So, that makes me think...are we being presumptuous when we encourage young children, or teenagers, to think of themselves as writers, or artists, or scientists? Doesn't that just give them a sense that their own thoughts and ideas are valuable? And isn't it good that the ground has already been so much broken for us?

Mrs. Dowson: On the contrary, the very fact of being able to roam over vast territories in the kingdom of science conquered and opened up by other men not rarely turns the weak heads of those who follow, and makes them, like lunatics at large, think themselves potentates when they are only tramps.

M.S.: So is it humility that we're lacking?

Mrs.. Dowson: Perhaps humanity. If we were tied down to a choice between science and letters, in the name of all that is human and living and universal, we should choose letters....those great organizers of our chaotic democracy of knowledge--the subjects which treat of the mind of man, of his knowing, feeling and acting, and of cause and purpose and meaning in the great whole of things.

M.S. But we don't have to choose between science and humanities.

Mrs. Dowson: No, we may safely make use of both, if we employ, as a necessary corrective to their separateness and their peculiar limitations, those subjects by means of which alone we can shew their fundamental relations.

This is the end of Mrs. Dowson's Part One; but she wrote a Part Two, still to come.

Drawn from the P.U.S.: how Charlotte Mason might have taught a chapter on Ecosystems and Biogeography

Subject: Ecosystems and Biogeography.

Group: Science. Class III. Time: 30 minutes. By Mama Squirrel.
Book used: The World Around You, by Gary Parker.

Objects.
I. To increase the student's knowledge of biotic and abiotic factors.
II. To show how all living things are connected to each other.
III. To give some account of the different biogeographic realms, using Australian marsupials as an example.

By way of introduction, I would ask the student to tell me the meaning of an ecosystem, and, for any ecosystem, name some of the things included; for instance, in an aquarium, we would have particular plants, animals, but also factors such as light and temperature. (Don't forget the tiny organisms that we can't see unaided.)  We can label any of these factors as either biotic or abiotic.  How do the different "factors" interact with each other? (Example: plants releasing oxygen for the animals to use.)
 
I would have her read orally from The World Around You, page 11, the paragraph about the interaction in an aquarium ecosystem.
 
Then, after narration, I would show a map of the six (original) major biogeographic realms: Palearctic, Nearctic, Neotropical, Ethiopian, Oriental, Australian.  Recently this map has been updated.  I would give the student a printout of the updated map, and read from the accompanying article.  "Our study is a long overdue update of one of the most fundamental maps in natural sciences," lead author of the new research in Science, Ben Holt, said in a press release. "For the first time since Wallace's attempt we are finally able to provide a broad description of the natural world based on incredibly detailed information for thousands of vertebrate species."  
 
After narration, we could talk about why scientists believe it to be important to divide the biogeographic realms more accurately, and what has allowed them to do that. Something hard to think about: would creationists and evolutionists think about biogeography somewhat differently?  As an example of a creationist approach, we would read the rest of the chapter, about Australian marsupials.

Adapted from Class Notes, as printed in various Parents' Reviews.

Mama Squirrel's Library Pile

From the public library, reading and leafing through:

The Map That Changed the World, by Simon Winchester
Why Geology Matters, by Doug Macdougall
The Seashell on the Mountaintop, by Alan Cutler
Eric Sloane's Weather Almanac

How to grow a young scientist (Dorothy Hodgkin, today's Google Doodle honoree)

Have you noticed today's Google Doodle?  It's in honour of Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994), the developer of protein crystallography.  She developed a way of showing how things like insulin are constructed--because scientists had to be able to see the structure of it before they could work with it.

"Though born in the twentieth century, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin had a typical late-nineteenth century upbringing. She was born in Cairo, Egypt, then a British colony. When Hodgkin was four, the family was back in England and World War I broke out. The parents returned to Egypt, leaving the children with family and governesses for four years. Hodgkin found an interest in chemistry and crystals, a popular hobby for women of leisure in the 1800s. But on her sixteenth birthday, she received a book by William Henry Bragg (a Nobelist in physics) about using x-rays to analyze crystals. She had found her life's work."  (PBS.org article)

"Her mother, Grace Mary Crowfoot (born Hood) was actively involved in all her father's work, and became an authority in her own right on early weaving techniques. She [Dorothy's mother] was also a very good botanist and drew in her spare time the illustrations to the official Flora of the Sudan. Dorothy Crowfoot spent one season between school and university with her parents, excavating at Jerash and drawing mosaic pavements, and she enjoyed the experience so much, that she seriously considered giving up chemistry for archaeology.  She became interested in chemistry and in crystals at about the age of 10, and this interest was encouraged by Dr. A.F. Joseph, a friend of her parents in the Sudan, who gave her chemicals and helped her during her stay there to analyse ilmenite. Most of her childhood she spent with her sisters at Geldeston in Norfolk, from where she went by day to the Sir John Leman School, Beccles, from 1921-28. One other girl, Norah Pusey, and Dorothy Crowfoot were allowed to join the boys doing chemistry at school, with Miss Deeley as their teacher; by the end of her school career, she had decided to study chemistry and possibly biochemistry at university."  (Nobel Prize biographical article)

"I first met the subject of X-ray diffraction of crystals in the pages of the book W. H. Bragg wrote for school children in 1925, 'Concerning the Nature of Things'. [More about Bragg] In this he wrote: "Broadly speaking, the discovery of X-rays has increased the keenness of our vision over ten thousand times and we can now 'see' the individual atoms and mo1ecules." I also first learnt at the same time about biochemistry which provided me with the molecules it seemed most desirable to 'see'. At Oxford, seriously studying chemistry, with Robinson and Hinshelwood among my professors, I became captivated by the edifices chemists had raised through experiment and imagination-but still I had a lurking question. Would it not be better if one could really 'see' whether molecules as complicated as the sterols, or strychnine were just as experiment suggested? The process of 'seeing' with X-rays was clearly more difficult to apply to such systems than my early reading of Bragg had suggested; it was with some hesitation that I began my first piece of research work with H. M. Powell on thallium dialkyl halides, substances remote from, yet curiously connected with, my later subjects for research."  (Her Nobel Prize acceptance speech)

More here.

Dollygirl's Grade Seven: Friday School Plans (Updated and Annotated)

And all the time we have books, books teeming with ideas fresh from the minds of thinkers upon every subject to which we can wish to introduce children. ~~ Charlotte Mason, School Education

Basic Bible Studies: The Holy Spirit. Use the NIV Bible Dictionary when needed.

Discuss Sunday reading options (or other devotional reading choices)

In this great work we seek and assuredly find the co-operation of the Divine Spirit, whom we recognise, in a sense rather new to modern thought, as the supreme Educator of mankind in things that have been called secular, fully as much as in those that have been called sacred. ~~ CM, School Education

How to Read a Book (Adler)

Handwriting practice

Spring of the Year: A list of things to hear in the spring

Ivanhoe: Cedric and his party have been attacked in the forest; "Locksley" tells Gurth and Wamba that he will do what he can to help.

I venture to propose one or two principles in the matter of school-books, and shall leave the far more difficult part, the application of those principles, to the reader. ~~ CM, School Education

First History of France, chapter 8 (we ended up reading the whole chapter): Louis VIII ("Lewis the Dolphin" in Shakespeare's King John), and Louis IX, also known as St. Louis.

Key to Geometry: work through several pages.  Be careful naming the triangles!

Apologia General Science: Reading about the positive and negative side of fats. Homework Read the online article I will send you about good snacks featuring complex carbohydrates. Choose two of the combinations that you like, and make sure we get those foods or the ingredients when we go shopping on the weekend.

I think we should have a great educational revolution once we ceased to regard ourselves as assortments of so-called faculties, and realised ourselves as persons whose great business it is to get in touch with other persons of all sorts and condition; of all countries and climes, of all times, past and present. History would become entrancing, literature a magic mirror for the discovery of other minds, the study of sociology a duty and a delight. We should tend to become responsive and wise, humble and reverent, recognising the duties and the joys of the full human life. We cannot of course overtake such a programme of work, but we can keep it in view; and I suppose every life is moulded upon its ideal. ~~ CM, School Education

Only in homeschool...

Why is teaching Dollygirl such a unique experience?

Because only Dollygirl could take a science lesson on the food chain and spend most of it discussing the fact that cows eat producers

and lions eat consumers.

How to get good and excited about two chapters of science (Dollygirl's Grade Seven)

Yes, we are still using Exploring Creation With General Science (Apologia, first edition) this school year. When The Apprentice did this book about ten years ago, I had her do the study guides and the tests.  With Dollygirl I think we have done one or two of the tests, but that was it.  I am more interested in having her pick up the big ideas in the book than memorize every component of DNA.  We also don't do a lot of the experiments, either because it's the wrong season, we don't have the stuff, or it just doesn't seem worthwhile because you can figure out ahead of time exactly what's going to happen.  You know that if you leave a jar of chicken broth on the counter for a couple of days, it's going to get all cloudy and gross.  We would rather eat the chicken broth first and just imagine the rest.

I also find one particular thing irritating about this volume, and I don't know if it's been improved in later editions: it could have used some editing to take out a large amount of repetition, and also the too-frequent phrase "You'll learn more about this when you take Biology."  That pops up about as often as references to Mr. Pipes' wiggling eyebrows in Douglas Bond's books, and if you don't get that, never mind.

However, there is one thing I do like about the book, and it's one of the main reasons we're using it.  It encourages the "science of relations."  One topic works its way into another one, just like real life.  It's a bit like Charles Kingsley's Madam How and Lady Why in that way; in Kingsley, a conversation can start with a rock on the ground, and end up talking about prehistoric oceans and sea life.  In this book, we were talking about geology in Module (Chapter) 6, which led to fossils in Modules 7 and 8, and because fossils had to come from living things, that led to the question "What is Life?" in Module 9, and then classification in Module 10.  Both of those modules kept coming back to the question of cells: cells that did not have organelles but did have DNA (Monera), animal cells with organelles, plant cells with organelles; and then the idea that "all life forms have a method by which they take energy from the surroundings and convert it into energy that helps them live."  Every living body makes food from something else.  And the big word that's coming up is:  COMBUSTION.

Well, before that, we do have to get through some basic human body components: bones, muscles and skin.  The chapter compares our physiology to that of other organisms.  But then we get into Module 12: Energy and Life.  How do organisms get their energy from food?  Didn't you always want to know that?  Isn't that more relevant than ever in these days of trying to force fast-food restaurants to post the calorie counts of milkshakes and burgers?  What actually gets burned for energy?  There's a discussion of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, and our basal metabolic rate...and all this combustion happens within the cell.  Does that amaze you, get you excited to think about how this is more than just a lesson on digestion?

We are, as we've been told, fearfully and wonderfully made.  If any science book, textbook-shaped or not, can get that idea across, I am content.

The meaning of life (Dollygirl's Grade Seven)

Dollygirl's science assignment: to design a creature and demonstrate how it meets all four criteria of living beings.

This is what she came up with:

New! Exclusive! It's...BLUB™!!!  (She included a drawing of a fluffy-looking thing with horns, fangs, large round eyes, and a bow tied on its long tail.)

She can suck up her BLUB™ Pellets!  (demonstrating ability to convert energy and derive nourishment)

She turns blue if you put her in the sun!  (demonstrating ability to respond to changes in the environment)

Turn off the lights, and her cells glow!  (demonstrating that she is made of cells, which we assume contain DNA)

ALSO BUY Her Children:  Blub™, Bib™, Bob™.  (Demonstratng her ability to reproduce.)

(I gave Dollygirl full marks.)

Natural History: Our School of Rocks

Photos by Mr Fixit; copyright 2013, Dewey's Treehouse.

Engineering, yes, what every tot dreams of at Christmas

"...a few exciting, against-the-grain developments: Toys R Us’ announcement in September that it will put an end to gender-specific marketing in the UK; Lego’s recent introduction of a female-scientist mini-figure to its lineup; and a just-gone-viral video from startup toy company GoldieBlox encouraging little girls to ditch sparkly pink pretend for play based on engineering."

 Oh brave new world.

 (Found here.)

Close up on nature study, for Dollygirl

Mr. Fixit has several kinds of big magnifying glasses to help when he's doing small electronic repairs.  Recently he got another powerful close-up-looker (I'll have to ask him what it's really called), and he said that Dollygirl can borrow it for nature study.  Which was very nice of him.

I thought she might be inspired to know that the Handbook of Nature Study Blog just posted about 5 Ways to Use Your Magnifying Lens in Nature Study.  Barb also has a Squidoo Lens for Best Magnifying Lens Plans and Activities.  Here's an article she links to on the Squidoo Lens: 50 Things to Look At Under a Microscope. So go look at something today!

Countdown to school: How Charlotte Mason planned middle-school science

Charlotte wouldn't have done it like that.
Charlotte wouldn't be such a slave to a science textbook.
Charlotte wouldn't have every vocabulary word charted out.
Charlotte wanted  students to think like people first, scientists second or third or tenth.
 
So how is that possibly Charlotte Mason?  What did she do at the middle-school level for science? Maybe I should just hand Dollygirl the book and tell her to have at it.  Or give her a stack of colourful library books instead.  Or send her outside to play and never mind science; she's only starting seventh grade.
 
When homeschool plans get too complicated, we go back and look at the Parent's Union School Programmes.
 
I did some PUS Programme research yesterday, looking at Form III (middle school) General Science and Natural History / Botany.

Out of twenty separate term programmes, before and after Charlotte's death, more or less consecutive but with a few skips where I hadn't downloaded every one, I found that one book appeared eighteen times.  I think it's safe to say that it was the backbone of the Form III Natural History / Botany course.  The book? The Study of Plant Life, by H.C. Stopes.  Plant growth, parts of plants, types of plants, places where plants grow.  Every. Single. Term. (almost).  And if you think that covered it and that the Form IV's would move on to chemistry or something, no, they weren't off the hook: when you moved up to Form IV (around Grade 9), you got to take on Fritsch's book on plants.

What were the other big repeats for Form III?

The Fairy-Land of Science, by Arabella Buckley, 14 times
Winners in Life's Race, or, The Great Back-Boned Family, by Arabella Buckley, 13
Architecture as Shown to the Children, 10 (which isn't really a science book at all)
Our Wonderful Universe, by A. Giberne, 8
The World of Sound, by Sir William Bragg, 3
Ruskin's Ethics of the Dust,3
Geikie's Physical Geography, 3 (it was used at other times as part of the geography course)
First Year of Scientific Knowledge, by Paul Bert, 3 (this was usually a Form IV book)
Tommy Smith’s Birds, 2
A Voyage in Space, by H.H. Turner, 2
Health Reader from Form IV, an alternative book for students not going on to Form IV, I think twice.

Most terms had two books under Natural History / Botany, and two under General Science.  Nature notebooks and special nature studies (with field guides and books about personal rambles and so on) were also mentioned every term.

What topics would Charlotte Mason’s middle-school students have covered over a couple of years of science?

The Fairy-land of Science covers topics such as light, the atmosphere, the water cycle, the formation of crystals, magnets, snowflakes, ice and other precipitation, glaciers, how rivers and other bodies of water alter the land, soundwaves, how ears work, sounds in nature, the life of a primrose (basic study of plant growth), where coal comes from, and two chapters about bees and pollination.

Winners in Life’s Race is an 1882 book about the supposed God-designed evolution of different types of animals.  Sample chapters: “How the Quaint Old Fishes of Ancient Times Have Lived on Into Our Day.”  “How the Backboned Animals Pass from Water-Breathing to Air-Breathing, and Find Their Way Out Upon the Land.” “The Feathered Conquerors of the Air.” “The Large Milk-Givers Which Have Conquered the World By Strength and Intelligence.” “How the Backboned Animals Have Returned to the Water, and Large Milk-Givers Imitate the Fish.”  Illustrations include “Ideal restoration of Pierygotus, the huge extinct sea-scorpion nine feet long …”; “Reptiles of the Cretaceous Period”; “Archaeopteryx, the lizard-tailed land-bird with teeth“; “Scene in the Triassic Period, with small Marsupials Microlestes…”; “Man as he lived in caves after the Glacial Period, among animals of species many of them now extinct …”.  (A contemporary equivalent for Christian families might be a study of zoology that discusses the different beliefs about how animals got to be as they are.)

Astronomy? Sample chapters include “Heavenly Bodies,” “How to Know the Stars,” “What the Moon is Really Like,” descriptions of the various planets, distances and measurement in space, what the sun is like.

Does that mean that Charlotte's students never ever studied Newton's Laws, chemistry, or any topic that doesn't appear in this list? No, if they had come through the earlier forms, they would have read The Sciences; and if they went on, they would have gotten into Scientific Knowledge. Form III appears to be a kind of oasis between those years.

Over and over again: astronomy, plant life, a kind of heavily-evolutionary look at zoology, and the Fairy-Land book which seems to have the theme of the forces that give life, tracing the effects of light, for example, through prehistoric plant life (leading to the formation of coal). And obviously, there were no charts, no detailed schedules for the teacher to follow.  I'm thinking that classroom teachers might have found it useful to have the days planned out ahead of time, even if home teachers were more spontaneous.  Sometimes, I think, teachers were expected to do a bit more than just follow the book, for instance in this lesson from Buckley's Life and Her Children.

What does that mean for us now?  To go back to my original questions, is there something wrong with having one main book for the term, rather than bits of four?  (I'm leaving nature notebooks etc. out of the equation).

Is it more important that our kids learn "to like science," as Ruth Beechick said, and that we provide the mind-food for their delectation but that we don't worry too much about how many plates it's served on? How do we balance "permission to be serious" with not turning science and nature study into a grind? I started with questions, I'm ending with questions. What do you think?

Countdown to School: a closer look at the first science units

I like Donna Young's handy outlines for Apologia Science, and especially the vocabulary bookmarks (see "Bookmarks for Lesson Plan #2).  But I realized that, for the first few weeks, especially having an every-other-day science class, it would work better to figure out our own schedule.  So Donna Young gets the credit for the original of this plan, and Dr. Jay Wile gets the credit for  the actual content of General Science (I added the part about lab safety rules); but the rest of it is a Mama Squirrel plan.

This should take us partway into October.  "Days" refer to the first day we do science, the second day we do science, and so on (not the first day of school, second day of school).  After that, we will probably just use Donna Young's schedule for the rest of the term.

Science Outline, Weeks 1-6, using Modules 1-3 of Exploring Creation with General Science, 1st Edition.

Day	Assignments and Experiments
1	Read the beginning of the book, notes and introduction. Read handouts for lab safety (school and home). Creatively present the importance of using equipment and materials safely.  Your choice of format: comic, poster, song, drama script.  Due in two days. ***Vocabulary: Learn these terms: science, papyrus, spontaneous generation, counter-example, hypothesis, theory, scientific law, experimental variable, control, blind studies, double-blind studies, subjective/objective data; any other vocabulary listed on the bookmarks for Modules 1-3.  Use drills and games on Quizlet.com to practice vocabulary (whenever appropriate).
2	Read textbook pages 1-3, The First Inklings of Science. Read pages 4-8, True science begins to emerge. Be able to identify (briefly) significant events / people in science history.  Make a timeline to illustrate this, as you study the chapter.  You may want to just keep notes now, then set up the timeline later.  It must be done neatly, on good paper, and not just in pencil.  Illustrations or cutouts will make it more visually effective.
3	Know the acceptable format for lab reports for this class.  Carry out the simple experiments from these chapters, as practice for later lab work.  Experiment 1.1: Density in Nature. Experiment 1.2: Atomic motion
4	(Pages) 8-12 Three other notable Greek scientists 12-16 Be able to tell what happened to science during the Dark Ages. What changed this situation? Experiment 1.3: a chemical reaction
5	16-19 Science begins to pick up speed again 19-23 The Renaissance Experiment 1.4: mapping the paths of the planets (optional)
6	23-25 The Era of Newton 25-26 The Enlightenment and the industrial revolution
7	27-29 The rest of the 19th century 29-31 Modern science 31 Summing it up.   Homework: do the study questions for module 1.
8	Write test for module 1.  Completed timeline to be handed in with test.
9	Module 2: Read Introduction;  What science is not. Experiment 2.1: how weight affects speed Experiment 2.2: more about weight and speed
10	Read 40-44 : The Scientific Method.  Be able to describe the scientific method verbally or with a diagram.  What is it used for?  Why is it important?  Experiment 2.3: the broken flashlight
11	Read 45-48 Failures of the scientific method Read 49-55 The Limitations of science; Science and Christianity.  Homework: do the study questions for module 2.
12	Write test for module 2
13	Experiment 3.1: a floating egg? Experiment 3.2: which boat will move? Experiment 3.3: what does soap do to water?, part 1 Experiment 3.4: what does soap do to water, part 2
14	Complete lab reports for experiments done previously. Read pages 59-69, From Introduction; stop at “Recognizing experimental variables when they are not obvious.”  Do the “On Your Own” questions.
15	Read 70-73, Recognizing experimental variables when they are not obvious Read 73-76, Interpreting the results of experiments: study  the chart in fig. 1.1 Homework: do the study questions for module 3.
16	Write test for module 3.

Countdown to school: Grade 7 Science Plans

It's three weeks till school starts; for us, anyway.  I know some of you start school next Monday, some of you started this week, and some of you never stopped.  But we still have three weeks.

Since I had been looking at the World Book Typical Course of Study for 7th Grade Language and Math, I figured I might as well check out the Science topics as well.  I remember Mary Pride going through some of these lists, or something like them, in one of her books, and pointing out where there can be a lot of overlap and repetition between the grades, along with a few politically-correct or twaddly topics.  However, when I looked at the lists for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade, and compared them with the two Apologia textbooks we have for middle school (General Science and Physical Science), I was a bit startled at how closely they lined up. General Science covers World Book topics such as microbes, algae and fungi, food for growth and energy, the cell, rocks, soil and minerals, weathering and erosion, the scientific method, and laboratory techniques (lab reports are required all through the book).  Physical Science includes chapters on climate and weather, atmosphere, electricity, and Newton's laws.   In fact, about the only major things missing would be a unit on chemistry (elements and compounds), maybe a space or astronomy unit, an oceans unit (which would be covered by The Sea Around Us if you had done Ambleside Online Year 6), and maybe some work on ecosystems, conservation, ecology and the environment.

Now obviously using the Apologia books is not the only way to cover those topics.  And when you say a textbook "covers" a topic, that can mean all kinds of things.  For instance, General Science has a chapter title that includes Paleontology, which might lead you to believe you're going to be discussing dinosaurs. Actually dinosaurs per se are mentioned about twice in the whole book.  Lots of fossils, studied in an age-of-the-earth context, but very little discussion of dinosaur life.  Just saying.  Also, the way that a Christian-based book "covers" a topic such as geology might be a little different from the way that a mainstream book handles it.  But since we do have the two books (plus some resources for the missing units), and I was planning on using them over the next two years anyway, the lists just reinforced that plan.

What I did change, while looking both at the lists and the textbooks, was the earlier plan to cover only half the General Science book this year.  Instead, we'll spend six weeks on the first three modules, which are an introduction to science history and the scientific method; skip Module 4, Simple Machines, since we've done lots of that before; and spend the rest of terms 1 and 2 on the Geology and Life Science modules, but saving most of the human-body chapters for next year.  The third term will be based on the DK Science Explorer bind-up volume we have (and other resources), using the sections on Matter and Chemistry (there's a lot of overlap in content).

Another thing I want to emphasize this year is getting out and letting Dollygirl have some fun being homeschooled.  Really.  Sometimes you just forget what's out there, or don't realize your kids have never gotten to do such and such.  Recently I downloaded Bucket List Learning, by Kimberlee Wilkes (when it was free--now it's not).  It was a reminder that sometimes you can actually cover a lot of lengthy school objectives through real-life experiences, field trips, community happenings.  In our own area, we are privileged to have an earth-sciences museum that not only provides school tours and talks, but also has a "rock garden"--not the kind you might have with flowers, but a "garden" of unusual geological specimens to walk through.  So obviously this is the year for us to make at least a couple of visits there.  Also there's a conservation area and nature centre within a short drive, that of course also offers school programs (for homeschoolers too) and places to just walk through the woods or look at pond life.  As the Bucket List book points out, once you start listing the stuff that's available (noon hour concerts! homeschool days at the museum! an archaeological site!), you can get carried away.

I'm looking forward to science...and I'm hoping that Dollygirl will get good things from this year's studies.