Details
| Type of Product: | NSTA Press Book (also see downloadable PDF version of this book) |
| Average Rating: | 
based on 2 reviews |
| Publication Date: | 4/1/2009 |
| Pages: | 356 |
| Stock Number: | PB237X |
| ISBN: | 978-1-933531-30-4 |
| Grade Level: | High School, Middle School |
Our reviewers—top-flight teachers and other outstanding science educators—have determined that this resource is among the best available supplements for science teaching.
[Read the full review] |
Description
Whether we are imagining microbes or mammoths, dinosaurs or diatoms, molecules or stars, people of all ages are fascinated with the very large and the very small. New technologies have enabled scientists to investigate extremes of science previously unknown. An understanding of scale and scaling effects is of central importance to a scientific understanding of the world.
Help your middle and high school biology, Earth science, chemistry, physics, and mathematics students develop quantitative evaluation with Extreme Science. Authors Gail Jones, Amy Taylor, and Michael Falvo offer a detailed look at types of scale, measurement, powers of ten, estimation and models of scale, surface area to volume relationships, limits to size, and behaviors at different scales.
Scaling conceptions are one of the four recommended unifying themes in the AAAS Benchmarks for Science Literacy. A knowledge of scaling will serve as a solid framework for students to anchor further learning and allow them to make cross-curricular connections between seemingly disparate topics.
The investigations in this book are designed to help students develop a comprehensive and flexible sense of scale through experiences with the quantitative units and tools of science. Investigations build on our research that has documented how people learn scale. To aid in comprehension, Extreme Science uses the 5Es (engage, explore, explain, extend, and evaluate) to illustrate each topic. By using this learning method, the activities help students learn to invent scales, develop benchmarks, estimate, and apply body rulers (estimating using fingers, arms, or pacing off distances). In so doing, students will come to understand scale on an intrinsic level and will appreciate that no problem is too big or too little to be scaleable. Comprehending scale at the largest and smallest levels is where a quantitative understanding of the world begins.
Additional Info
| Intended User Role: | Curriculum Supervisor, High-School Educator, Middle-Level Educator, Teacher |
| Educational Issues: | Assessment of students, Classroom management, Community involvement, Curriculum, Educational research, Inquiry learning, Instructional materials, Integrating technology, Interdisciplinary, Professional development, Science safety, Teacher content knowledge, Teacher preparation, Teaching strategies |
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1. What Is Scale?
Chapter 2. Types of Scale
Measurement
Chapter 3. Oops! I Did It Again: Errors in Measurement
Powers of Ten
Chapter 4. Sort It Out
Chapter 5. It’s Not All Relative: Relative versus Absolute
Chapter 6. The Scale of the Solar System
Chapter 7. Time Flies
Estimation and Models
Chapter 8. Billions of Us: Scale and Populations
Chapter 9. Scale It!
Chapter 10. Mega Virus
Chapter 11. Your World or Mine? Perspectives
Chapter 12. Eye in the Sky: GIS and Scale
Chapter 13. Drops to the Ocean: A GIS Study of River Basins
Chapter 14. Zoom, Zoom: Magnification
Surface Area-to-Volume Relationships
Chapter 15. That’s Hot! The Effect of Size on Rate of Heat Loss
Chapter 16. Sweet! Exploring Surface Area of Sugar Molecules
Limits to Size
Chapter 17. Captivating Cubes
Chapter 18. Eggsactly
Chapter 19. Attack of the Giant Bugs
Behaviors and Scale
Chapter 20. Flying Foam: The Scale of Forces
Chapter 21. Stick With It!
Chapter 22. Fractals: Self-Similar at Different Scales
Chapter 23. Screening My Calls: Scale and the Electromagnetic Spectrum
Chapter 24. Stringy Chemistry and States of Matter
Chapter 25. Our Amazing Senses
Chapter 26. Beetlemice Multitudes!!! Power Law and Exponential Scaling
Customer Reviews
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Great lessons with poor instructions |
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Reviewed by: Alfonso on September 6, 2012 |
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Although the content and the class activities in the book are great, the instructions are poorly written. Many details for how to carry out the class activities or lessons are missing and the resources for each activity are outdated web links or of poor quality. |
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From Nano to Galactic |
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Reviewed by: Dorothy E. Matyskiel (Lake Worth, FL) on June 2, 2009 |
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Helping the student to apply the use of scale will not only be an effective learning tool for science, but also they will find its use applicable across the disciplines. |
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