Reviewed by Kathie Owens
Assistant Professor
This book is a collection of earth science articles from NSTA’s journals (Journal of College Science Teaching, The Science Teacher, Science Scope, Science and Children) published between 1982 and 1991. The activities described in the articles are meant to be supplements to the school curriculum for elementary through college grades (mostly grades 5-10). They require little background material and use simple and easy-to-obtain materials.
Arranged by subject area (Earth’s properties and features, weather and the environment, space science), the activities frequently link related topics in innovative ways. Included in the book is a bibliography of all Earth science related articles published between 1982 and 1991 in the NSTA journals listed above.
Earth science teachers will find many wonderful ideas for activities to incorporate into their course of study. The teacher-to-teacher nature of these activities is appealing. The use of safe and low-cost materials that require little advance preparation (for example, teaching map projections using a grapefruit) is attractive. Furthermore, the reader can be confident that the activities in this book have been proven in real classrooms with real students, so the bugs have already been worked out.
Many of the articles contained in this book are classics that will never age. Others, however, should be modified to reflect the modern emphasis on safety. For example, in one article, students are simulating cleaning up an oil spill and neither the materials list nor the picture suggests that the students wear eye protection. Likewise, references in the articles that were timely when the article was originally published are dated now, so the reader should consider supplementing with more recent material. For example, the book was published before the National Science Education Standards were written, of course, so links to this document have to be supplied by the reader. Also missing from most articles is an evaluation component, so the teacher using the idea or activity will have to supply assessment components as well. But these few shortcomings should not deter Earth science teachers from looking to this book for interesting, creative, and fun ideas to spark their classroom instruction.
Review posted on 1/19/2001
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