Energy: Its Forms, Changes, & Functions (Investigate the Possibilities) Review

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(More customer reviews)Energy: Its Forms, Changes, & Functions (Investigate the Possibilities Series) is part of a Christian-based science curriculum written by Tom DeRosa and Carolyn Reeves. The other sets in the series, which are published by Master Books, are Matter and Forces and Motion. Each set contains three, paperback booklets with color illustrations.
Energy includes 20 hands-on science lessons that cover such topics as energy, light, heat, magnets, electricity, and solar, wind, water and nuclear energy. Each lesson contains an introduction to the topic, lab instructions, an explanation of the results of the experiment, connections to other ideas related to that topic, an opportunity for students to expand on what they learned, andan assessment to determine what your child learned.
Supplies will have to be gathered ahead of time and include such items as dry cells, sandpaper, marbles, pipe foam insulation, convex lenses, insulated wire, battery holders, knife switch and thermometer. In other words, these are items that are not impossible to find, but you will need to purchase them ahead of time. Equipment can be ordered from places such as Home Science Tools. By purchasing your equipment a little at a time using books like this, it's a good way to create your science supply kit for K-12th grade.
The teacher's guide includes objectives, notes and answers to the assessment questions.
The student journal is where students write observations about the investigation and answers to the assessment questions.
Each three-book set is only $[...], well worth the price. I recommend Energy for children in 1-8th grade, depending upon the student's science aptitude. For younger students, this could be part of a complete science curriculum. Add some library books and you have everything you need for lab science. For students in 6th grade and up, this could be used as enrichment to complement a science textbook. I would also use this for special education purposes for older students.


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The third set in this exciting elementary-level science series focuses on energy in all it forms and shows how it functions! Filled with experiments and hands-on activities, the series feature the combined 60 plus years of science education experience of authors Tom DeRosa and Carolyn Reeves.Discover how and why magnets work, different kinds of energy from wind to waves, nuclear power to solar energy. Presented in a kid-friendly, full color design - the book also contains a helpful glossary of terms for easy reference.Designed for 3rd to 6th graders, the series is perfect as standalone curriculum items or as part of a supplement-expanded science study.

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What's Science Ever Done For Us: What the Simpsons Can Teach Us About Physics, Robots, Life, and the Universe Review

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(More customer reviews)If you're a fan of The Simpsons, then you know that they've had plenty of episodes that involve fairly scientific topics and a few well-known guest stars from the scientific community. Paul Halpern digs a little deeper into these mysteries of science in the book What's Science Ever Done For Us: What the Simpsons Can Teach Us About Physics, Robots, Life, and the Universe. By the time you get done with the book, you'll be better edumacated about a lot of things, and you'll have an enjoyable time getting there...
Contents:
Part 1 - It's Alive!: The Simpson Gene; You Say Tomato, I Say Tomacco; Blinky, the Three-Eyed Fish; Burns's Radiant Glow; We All Live in a Cell-Sized Submarine; Lisa's Recipe for Life; Look Homer-Ward, Angel
Part 2 - Mechanical Plots: D'ohs ex Machina; Perpetual Commotion; Dude, I'm an Android; Rules for Robots; Chaos in Cartoonland; Fly in the Ointment
Part 3 - No Time to D'ohs: Clockstopping; A Toast to the Past; Frinking about the Future
Part 4 - Springfield, the Universe, and Beyond: Lisa's Scoping Skills; Diverting Rays; The Plunge Down Under; If Astrolabes Could Talk; Cometary Cowabunga; Homer's Space Odyssey; Could This Really Be the End?; Foolish Earthlings; Is the Universe a Donut?; The Third Dimension of Homer
Inconclusion: The Journey Continues
Acknowledgments; The Simpsons Movie Handy Science Checklist; Scientifically Relevant Episodes Discussed in This Book; Notes; Further Information; Index
I'll admit I was expecting far less from this book when I first heard of it. I've seen too many "intellectuals" dissect a cartoon or story and add layers of complexity and academic baggage to the point that they've created their own fantasy world about what things "really" mean. Fortunately, that doesn't happen here. Halpern treats the Simpsons series with respect in terms of enjoying the episodes and understanding that they are primarily entertainment. But he goes deeper into some of the episodes to examine the science behind the storyline. For instance, he discusses the "fact" that water drains counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere due to the Coriolis effect. This is tied back to an episode where Bart and Lisa were trying to prove that fact and ended up having to travel to Australia to avoid an international incident. By the time you're done with the chapter, you know exactly what the Coriolis effect is, and whether water really *does* behave that way. Or there's the discussion about perpetual motion machines and whether it would ever be possible to build one like Lisa did in one episode. Again, by the end of the chapter, you know why the laws of thermodynamics mean that it's impossible to do that. Add in a few guest appearance by people like Stephen Hawkings, and you end up with an entertaining read about solid science, along with a few "I remember that episode!" moments...
This is a definite "should read" for Simpson fans, and perhaps a really good resource for teachers who are trying to hook younger minds into the realities of science...


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Aethro-dynamics Review

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When I got the package in the (snail) mail today, my first impression was "this is a THIN book". So much for expectations. Steven's first book, Aethro-kinematics, was (is) the same size pages, but it is one and a quarter inches thick, and 523 pages.
Aethro-Dynamics is just shy of 1/2 inches thick, and 153 pages.
The first real section (the 1st section is a one page insert of the CD containing the book, Aethro-kinematics) is magnetism (Ferromagnetism as if there is a difference).
Steven provides us with more historical prospective of the inquiry into the mystery of magnetism, just like he did in his first book. This one has more references to "other people's opinions", which is of little help, since these "giants" never did figure out how magnets work. Steven provides us with the same theory from book one, that magnetism is a "flow" of aether. Nothing new here.
And he skipped over any reasoning for why the magnet "flow" only affects iron sized molecules. Steven and I talked (1995) about the need for some special attribute of this flow to distinguish between Aluminum, Iron, Gold, and Wood.
The forth section is labeled "Revisiting gravity, free fall and inertia". The historical review is good or better than the first book, BUT after repeating his Aether sink-vortex theory (from book 1), Steven still can not bring himself to say that Gravity equals the vertical flow of the Aether. The best he could do was
to hedge his language with "Aethro-kinematics, thus postulated a centripetal, spiral gravitational inflow of Aether into all accreting Matter." Page 135.
I was not nearly as impressed with this book as I was with the first book, 15 years ago.

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The theory of an all-pervading physical Aether as forming a 'cosmosphere' by its randomly moving constituents, the 'Aethrons', producing an isotropic static pressure on every point of the Universe. The 'natural vorticity' (Descartes) of this medium creates local rotations in the fluid which are condensed by the pressure and evolve into dynamic matter. The first permanent and encapsulated evolutionary unit is a 'donut-vortex-dipole' equal to the modern 'electron dipole', that continues to evolve in all magnitudes of atoms, molecules, solar-systems, galaxies, etc. The model of the Aether is based on the simplest form of Newton's mechanics, but declines his 'Universal Gravitational force' by replacing it with a new force due to the 'Evolution of Matter' thru the dynamic condensation of the Aether into subatomic, atomic and molecular systems, encapsulated into units by the cosmic pressure. Thus, 'matter' is the condensation of rotational dynamics of Aether. All evolving matter consumes the cosmosphere and this procedure rarefying the Aether, that is, create a 'suction force' produced by the inhalation of Aether by the cosmic bodies, feeding their internal evolution. Consider the following enigmas of present physics: Galileo's 'Inertia' and 'Principle of Equivalence' , Newton's mysterious identity of 'gravitational and inertial masses' for explaining Galileo and saving his own derivation of the Kepler's formula. Coulomb's negative and positive fluid charges creating the neutrality of matter, instead of Franklin's much simpler an sensible 'one fluid' theory with its 'surplus', or 'deficiency' on the electrified objects. Faraday's mysteriously visible magnetic and electric lines of forces in empty space and Maxwell's inability to build a model of Aether which forces him to a Langrangean mathematical detour and to postulate an enigmatic 'displacement current' without a conveying Aether. J.J. Thomson discovery of the first subatomic particle, named as 'electron' and defined as a negativeÂcharge carrier in one of Coulomb's two fluids. Rutherford discovered a second subatomic particle, the 'proton' being 1836 times more massive than the electron, but inherits the 'same unit charge' as the electron, but 'positive'. Thus the proton became the nucleus of the Hydrogen atom, with one orbital electron. Einstein demolished all Aether theories, postulated that the speed of light is the limit of the motion of matter and discovered that the 'inertial mass' of an object is increasing when it is approaching the speed of light. His gravitation is not a 'force', but simply an 'acceleration field', that is due to 'the effect of mass on geometry, as it curvesÂEuclid's straight line motion into orbits according to the inverse square law of action at a distance. 20th century physics finally concludes that protons are imprisoned in the nucleus and could not 'flow' at all, thus the 'electric current' is not the positive fluid of protons as Coulomb suggested, but the negative 'Electron Current'. Nevertheless, the protons are still repelling each other with an immense force of repulsion in the tiny nucleus, therefore, to save the 'electrostatic model of the atom' and Coulomb's whole theory had to be mathematically saved by the newest 'Standard Model' of 'Quantum Mechanics' by postulating an immensely 'Strong Nuclear Force', which is just enough strong to cancel the protonic repulsion in the nucleus but short-range enough to leave a good old attraction field alive to keep the electrons on their orbits at 10.000 nuclei-diameters distance away in empty space...by 'action at a distance'. All these are described, explained and resolved here by Aethro-dynamics that is also contains a full CD version of the first volume; Aethro-kinematics for detailed history.

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Let's Fish Magnetic Math Fun with a Magnetic Fishing Pole, 15 Pieces to Sort, and a Pull-out Pond (A Catch and Match Book) Review

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(More customer reviews)It is a fun book to teach children recognize colors,numbers and opposite. My daughter loves it.

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Slide out the fully-stocked pond, pop out the sturdy magnetic fishing pole, and get ready for hands-on fishing fun! Each page challenges kids to catch the right animals and match them to the correct recessed space on the page. As they count, create patterns, match and sort animals in different colors and sizes, they'll hardly notice they're learning some of math's most important fundamentals!

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