Book Description
This book is a response to the increasing popularity of informal centers of learning. Museums and centers of all kinds - including science, arts and culture -play a key role in educational infrastructure. At the same time, however, there is a growing awareness that visits, especially by school groups, could be more successful if there were greater interaction between museum curators and teachers. The Commonwealth Secretariat have produced this book to share ideas and approaches for teachers in schools as well as for curators and educators in museums and centers, in order to exploit the potential of museums and centers in popularizing science and technology.
The articles included are drawn from many different centers, and from around the English-speaking world.Section 1 assesses local needs and how to address them through outreach programs.Section 2 looks at ways in which teachers can increase the effectiveness of a visit and formats for evaluating the visit.Section 3 looks at the vexing issues of new technologies, which are costlyyet an important and very popular dimension of the science center experience. Section 4 focuses on research into effective learning in science centers and museums. ... Read more

Product Description
Klutz is proud to announce its long-awaited version of a science book. 100 jam-packed pages cover subjects from light waves to biology, magnetism to optical illusions. Bound into the book are a mirror, moire spinner, diffraction grating, Fresnel lens, and agar growth medium. Attached to the binding is a plastic magnetic wand. Full color throughout. Publishers Weekly Bestseller Award, Parents Choice Gold Award. --ages 8+-- ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Loved this book as a child.
Similar to a few other reviewers, I loved this book when I was a kid.This is a book I would recommend to any parent or child.I have nothing but fond memories of this book.I hadn't seen this book in years and I still remember being introduced to many fascinating subjects from this book.

Also my first science book, highly recommended.
Like another reviewer, I recently found this on my shelf and was curious to see whether it was in print. I'm 22 now and must've been around 8 when I got it.

I'm in University now, studying software engineering, and I have to say that this book really spurred my interest in science. It comes with so many cool things, a magnet, agar, diffraction grating, and a fresnel lens.

Highly recommend this to parents, aunts, and uncles looking for an awesome gift for a youngster in the family. The kid won't be disappointed once they get into it after expecting an action figure or video game.

Extremely Good Book! Lots of Fun.
Good experiments and examples. Amazing gadgets inside. Very well written for kids. Lot of real fun and educative time. A must for kids interesting on science.

This was My First Science Book!
I am 20 years old now and I still remember when I got this book and read it for the first time. It made science so cool and was a great way to show kids how science can be cool. I actually just found this book in a big stack and decided to look it up on Amazon. GREAT to hear they still sell it. I recommend this book to every kid!

My first science text book!
Ah, EMS sold these for a short stint in the early 90s (1992 or so).This was such a great book for the beginning experimenter, in fact some topics have stuck in my mind and helped me on science topics i'll tackle later in life...e.g. noone in my AP chem class knew what 'agar' was! ... Read more

Book Description
The development of interactive displays has transformed the traditional museum world in the last decade. Thrust into intense competition for the public's time and money with all branches of the leisure industry, museums must operate with marketing savvy. Visitors are no longer satisfied by simply gazing at worthy displays in glass cases; they expect to have hands-on experience of the objects and be actively involved with the exhibits as a form of entertainment.Tim Caulton investigates how to create and operate the effective exhibitions which achieve their educational objectives through hands-on access while encouraging a broader visitor base. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

To the point, great reference and basic introduction
Tim Caulton has prepared an excellent reference book for anyone involved in Science Centers and Children's Museums. He manages to contextualize all the relevant factors: history, education, exhibit development, marketing, finance, human resources, operations, special events and activities. I have used this book to a great extent. It has helped me plan and manage a mayor children's museum. His style is straightforward and synthetic. The book has a lot of useful information. It addresses the main educational theories and particular museum cases to illustrate the problems, risks and most effective procedures to run a kind of museum that is not like the rest. A must for anyone that operates interactive museums. Not many books on the subject. This one is a keeper. ... Read more

Book Description
For almost thirty years, the words "Star Wars" have summoned images of spaceships, super-weapons, and futuristic visions of all kinds. But George Lucas's immensely popular, vividly imagined blockbusters of life in "a galaxy far, far away" have often anticipated real-life technology right here on Earth—and this fascinating, visually irresistible book probes the amazing interface between movie magic and practical science.

Today's scientists are taking Star Wars fictions and turning them into fact; travel entrepreneurs are making plans for commercial space flight, and high-tech mag-lev trains defy gravity to zoom along like Luke Sky-walker's landspeeder. As the beloved C-3PO observes in his introduction to the book, robots are now a reality, and microscopic nanobots are already performing surgery internally. In the next twenty years, human soldiers will wear exoskeletal armor like Imperial stormtroopers and carry laser weapons as lethal as any light-saber, while orbiting satellites spy on the enemy and accurately pinpoint targets thousands of miles away. These exciting advances, often fraught with peril, are explored by the book's technological experts, who consider the risky implications and possible consequences of their inventions.

A perfect souvenir for visitors to the exhibition, now on a three-year multi-city tour, as well as the millions who have made Star Wars one of the most successful epics in entertainment history, this is a book guaranteed to delight film fans and the technologically savvy alike. ... Read more

Amazon.com
The Exploratorium in San Francisco is"a museum of science, art, and human perception founded in 1969 by physicist Frank Oppenheimer. The mission of the Exploratorium is to create innovative learning environments, programs, and tools for exploration that help people of all ages, origins, and geographic locations use their natural curiosity to learn about the world around them." And if you've ever been there, you know that this ambitious mission statement is fulfilled in spades. It is an extraordinary place that I try to visit every time I go to San Francisco.

This delightful book allows you to create your own Exploratorium at home. It's got loads of experiments that, in the best Exploratorium tradition, are fun and highly educational (as an aside, by following one of the exercises, I was able to makea styrofoam airplane that looks suspiciously like the Amazon.com Books logo--and it flies!). Highly Recommended for the curious and playful of any age. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Good Fun and Good Science!
Many science experiment books out there either have bad science in them, poorly designed experiments, or unclear directions (or, unfortunately, all three).This book has great experiments that are easy and fun to do.And, the science behind the experiments is accurate and clearly explained.As a scientist, science teacher, and parent, this book is the first one my list of recommendations!

Experiments for "Bring Your Kids to Work" Day
I ordered several books to prepare for the experiments I wanted to present for the "Bring Your Kids to Work" Day.This was, by far, the most useful and most interesting book I received.You can use theexperiments listed in the book, and tailor them for younger or olderchildren very easily.I'm going to order the sequel, "ScienceExplorer, Out and About," today!

The best and easiest book of its kind!
I am an elementary school teacher and the mother of three young children so I have read a lot of books that say they are filled with easy-to-do science experiments butthis is by far the best of itskind that I haveread. Within the first two hours my kids and I did three of the experimentsAND had a great time together AND learned something! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Superb addition to a library science reference collection.
Museums Of Modern Science is an impressive and unique history and surveyof the role museums play in engendering public interest in the sciences,how exhibitions are affected by multi-media techniques, what role art playsin the process of a science exhibit, and how science museums impact on therelevant and related issues of the day. The contributors draw upon a widediversity of experience and their essays are arranged and presented in fourmajor sections: The Issues (how to explain modern science and how to reachthe indifferent); The Level Of Complexity (the "middle way"between the superficial and the repellent); Virtual Museums (the challengesof new technology); and Controversial Science Issues (neither apologeticglorification nor the "science war". Museums Of Modern Science isa superb addition to any personal, public, academic, and museum libraryreference collection. ... Read more

Book Description

Museum Informatics explores the sociotechnical issues that arise when people, information, and technology interact in museums. It is designed specifically to address the many challenges faced by museums, museum professionals, and museum visitors in the information society. It examines not only applications of new technologies in museums, but how advances in information science and technology have changed the very nature of museums, both what it is to work in one, and what it is to visit one.

To explore these issues, Museum Informatics offers a selection of contributed chapters, written by leading museum researchers and practitioners, each covering significant themes or concepts fundamental to the study of museum informatics and providing practical examples and detailed case studies useful for museum researchers and professionals. In this way, Museum Informatics offers a fresh perspective on the sociotechnical interactions that occur between people, information, and technology in museums, presented in a format accessible to multiple audiences, including researchers, students, museum professionals, and museum visitors.

Book Description

Customer Reviews (1)

An interesting perspective on Victorian science
I have found one of the most interesting dimensions of Victorian intellectual history (of which there are many) is the development and distribution of new scientific information.After all, this is the period when Darwin in 1859 unloaded his "Origin of Species."But there was much more going on than evolution, both before and after Darwin's bombshell.This essay collection looks at how science was disseminated during the 19th century. It discusses this process under several general topics.For example, under "Orality," there are essays on the important role of public lecturing (something much scarcer today) as a device for reaching the general public with new concepts, such as "phrenology."A second major method was, of course, through print, including handbooks published to assist museum visitors as they reviewed exhibits. A third device was "display," involving exhibits at private homes, the amazing spectacle of the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, and of course the variety of museums throughout London. The co-editors are leading scholars in this field, as are the contributors. Each chapter has an excellent bibliography attached, and there are many helpful illustrations included. At 400 pages, this is a long book, but seldom does it drag and it opened up for me a number of concepts with which I had not previously had familiarity.An important addition to the available literature on this topic. ... Read more

Book Description
Learn about science the same way Ben Franklin did—by performing incredible experiments!

Ben Franklin, the famous patriot and signer of the Declaration of Independence, was also America's first great scientist. At a time when science was a mystery to most people, he performed incredible experiments that revealed amazing facts about light, heat, sound, electricity, the weather, and other aspects of the natural world.

Now the enormously popular Franklin Institute Science Museum shows you how to do your own exciting experiments Ben Franklin's way. He used common objects such as cooking oil, a glass bottle, or pieces of colored cloth to chart the Gulf Stream, predict the weather, or measure how much a molecule weighs. Using inexpensive, easy-to-find items, you'll discover how to:

• Build an optical toy shop, including a prism, kaleidoscope, telescope, and periscope
• Make a weather station with a working barometer, hygrometer, and other homemade meteorological instruments
• Create an orchestra with flutes, water chimes, maracas, and a guitar you make yourself
• Build your own printing press and print documents on paper that you make in your own paper mill
• Perform these and dozens of other experiments at home, in the classroom, or as science fair projects—and enjoy the fun of it

The Franklin Institute Science Museum was built in 1934 in Ben Franklin's hometown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The first hands-on science museum ever, it offers people a chance to learn about science by experimenting with hundreds of exhibits, including a 20-foot model of the human heart, a 350-ton steam locomotive, and a working weather station. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Ben Franklin Book of Easy and Incredible Exp
As a homeschool teacher I find this book a great tool for simple, yet effective experiments.The book contains detailed information about a variety of science subjects, including:weather, electricity, light and sight, paper and printing, etc. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Science Teacher Resource Material
This volume from the Exploratorium in San Francisco is a must resource for all Middle School and Junior High School science teachers.Don't requisition it -- just buy it -- before it's completely out of print and gone!js ... Read more

Book Description
Since World War II, there has been tremendous success in the development of new methods for dating artifacts; the so-called `radiocarbon revolution' was only the first such discovery. The increasing accuracy of the various new techniques has brought about major changes in archaeological research strategies. This important new text compiles the work of some of today's most innovative archaeologists who summarize progress in their respective techniques over the last 30 years - with an emphasis on developments of the last five - and the status of current research. ... Read more

Book Description
The study of the relationship of phytoliths to the human use ofplants and the environmental context of cultural change has beenhandicapped by the paucity of data on many important plant groups andby the unavailablity of comparative collections. This volume, whichincludes an annotated bibliography, will add materially to the corpusof available systematics for these important plant groups. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Kids who love noise will love this book
This title is a good choice for introducing children to Ms. Frizzle and her class of diverse personalities. Kids learn from this book that we hear sound when objects vibrate and that sound is dampened when vibration is hindered. Eventually the class dons magic glasses that allow them to see soundwaves. The students notice that higher sounds have waves that are close together whereas lower sounds have waves spread much further apart. The concepts aren't difficult to grasp and the plot is entertaining.

This book became an instant favorite of my daughter when she was two and a half years old. It still interests both my son and daughter now that they are five and a half and three and a half respectively. They love reading the noises in the spooky forest where the bus grinds to a halt outside the museum and they never tire of hearing sounds emanating from the audible books inside the museum.

The straightforward science and noisy read make this a great introductory title. Once children are familiar with Ms. Frizzle hook them with other Magic School Bus books where the morphing antics of the bus play a more central role. An animation of MSB in the Huanted Museum is also available.
... Read more