Description Details
Through delightful outings with her students, a teacher introduces her class to the fascinating world of insects. She encourages her students to observe and ask questions. This is a wonderful science text for young children. (Summary by Laura Caldwell)...

Excerpt Details
Children, Science

Description Details
While many scientific men now understand our place in the universe, we electrons are anxious that every person should know the very important part which we play in the workaday world. It was for this reason that my fellow-electrons urged me to write my own biography. I am pleased to say that my relationship with the scribe who has put down my story in the following pages has been of the most friendly description. I have allowed him to place what he calls The Scribe's Note at the beginning of each chapter, but it will be understood clearly that these are merely convenient embellishments, and that I am responsible for the story of my own experiences. (Introduction adapted from the text)...

Excerpt Details
Children, Science

Description Details
This book, written in the mid 19th century and illustrated by Charles H. Bennett, provides an entertaining introduction to topics in science for children. In each chapter, the author uses a popular myth or fairy tale to lay the groundwork for an equally fascinating fairy tale of science full of interesting facts and real life examples. (Summary by J. M. Smallheer)...

Excerpt Details
Children, Science, Fairy tales, Myths/Legends

Description Details
In By Pond and River , another of Arabella Buckley's wonderful science books for children, she explains the habitats of ponds and rivers, exposing children to the animals and plant life that are found there. (Summary by Laura Caldwell)...

Excerpt Details
Science, Nature, Children, Animals

Description Details
56 flavors of Pi proudly produced by volunteers to celebrate Pi Day, 2008. (3/14) Don't worry, you don't have to listen to an infinite string of numbers: each reader presents just the first 50 digits in styles of their own choosing. In light of the spirit of this occasion (and the might of our spirited community), this offering makes a gentle exception to the policy of faithfully presenting just the text. This is the real Pi, but served up with a side of sillies -- it's Pi a la volunteer. (Summary by Cori Samuel and Anita Roy Dobbs)...

Excerpt Details
Science, Essay/Short nonfiction, Humor

Description Details
Wild Life in Woods and Fields by Arabella B. Buckley is a collection of stories that will encourage children to become little naturalists and explore the majesty of the great outdoors. This is science taught in such a charming, delightful way that children will learn without even realizing it! (Summary by Laura Caldwell)...

Excerpt Details
Children, Science

Description Details
Arabella Buckley had a great love of nature and wished to impart that love to children. Birds of the Air will encourage children to observe birds in their natural environment and notice the habits of each particular bird they encounter. (Summary by Laura Caldwell)...

Excerpt Details
Science, Children, Nature

Description Details
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution is a book by Peter Kropotkin on the subject of mutual aid, written while he was living in exile in England. It was first published by William Heinemann in London in October 1902. The individual chapters had originally been published in 1890-96 as a series of essays in the British monthly literary magazine, Nineteenth Century. Written partly in response to Social Darwinism and in particular to Thomas H. Huxley's Nineteenth Century essay, The Struggle for Existence, Kropotkin's book drew on his experiences in scientific expeditions in Siberia to illustrate the phenomenon of cooperation. After examining the evidence of cooperation in nonhuman animals, savages, barbarians, in medieval cities, and in modern times, he concludes that cooperation and mutual aid are as important in the evolution of the species as competition and mutual strife, if not more so....

Excerpt Details
Science

Description Details
Buzz, buzz, buzz. A fascinating and beautifully written explanation of the life of the honey bee. Maeterlinck, who won the Noble Prize for Literature, wrote a more scholarly work called The Life of the Bee but then rewrote it in simpler terms so that children could appreciate what goes in a hive. The book describes in simple language the inner workings of a hive from its beginning with a swarm to the fully functional hive with thousands of workers, drones and a queen busily building, repairing and gathering. (Summary by phil chenevert)...

Excerpt Details
Science

Description Details
Published in 1911 as part of the Harper's Library of Living Thought, this volume presents an introduction to the chemistry of cells in the context of plant physiology and gives an interesting overview of the field of biochemistry and related sciences at the time. The author, Frederick Czapek, was a Czech botanist and professor of Plant Physiology at the University of Prague. He is perhaps best known for his two-volume work on Plant Physiology, Biochemie der Pflanzen and for Czapek solution agar or Czapek-Dox medium, a culture medium for cultivation of fungus species such as Aspergillus and Penicillium molds . ( Summary by J. M. Smallheer )...

Excerpt Details
Science

Description Details
“The Letters contained in this little Volume embrace some of the most important points of the science of Chemistry, in their application to Natural Philosophy, Physiology, Agriculture, and Commerce. Some of them treat of subjects which have already been, or will hereafter be, more fully discussed in my larger works. They were intended to be mere sketches, and were written for the especial purpose of exciting the attention of governments, and an enlightened public, to the necessity of establishing Schools of Chemistry, and of promoting by every means, the study of a science so intimately connected with the arts, pursuits, and social well-being of modern civilised nations.” –Justus Liebig, August 1843...

Excerpt Details
Science

Description Details
Part 2 of 3 of a book on evolutionary theory by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871. It was Darwin's second great book on evolutionary theory, following his 1859 work, On The Origin of Species. In The Descent of Man, Darwin applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection. The book discusses many related issues, including evolutionary psychology, evolutionary ethics, differences between human races, differences between sexes, the superiority of men to women, and the relevance of the evolutionary theory to society.(Summary by Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Science

Description Details
A book on evolutionary theory by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871. It was Darwin's second great book on evolutionary theory, following his 1859 work, On The Origin of Species. In The Descent of Man, Darwin applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection. The book discusses many related issues, including evolutionary psychology, evolutionary ethics, differences between human races, differences between sexes, the superiority of men to women, and the relevance of the evolutionary theory to society.(Summary by Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Science

Description Details
If this book were written today, it would be called The Story of the World's Rubbish. That may not sound a promising subject for a book, but we are taken on a journey all over the world (and beyond) to explain the many varieties of dust and refuse - animal, vegetable and mineral - how it is made both by man and by nature, what happens to it, and why we need it. We find that recycling is nothing new: man has been doing it for centuries, and nature has been doing it for billions of years. As every schoolboy knows, 'matter is neither created nor destroyed', so it stands to reason that every particle of it must be somewhere. This study of our knowledge of the earth was written for the layman before most of the -ologies were even a twinkle in a professor's eye. Geology, meteorology, hydrology, biology, glaciology and even sociology and anthropology all have their place in this readable and enjoyable tour of the earth's 'lumber room'. Though some of the science is out of date - it was written, for instance, 80 years before the theory of plate tectonics was understood - the author admits candidly when the science of the day does not yet pr...

Excerpt Details
Nature, Science