Musing on science read alouds

[madteaparty]

The TL, DNR version is, is there a better, more accessible read aloud for a general science book than The Way Things work for a middle schooler?  The longer version is:  i’m not a sciency person  and find it very hard to feed that curiosity in my daughter, who’s certainly more science-curious than her brother was. We read the occasional Scientific American article and while we try read-alouds, I find we are gravitating towards biology more and more. I think this is because that’s what *I* find accessible  to me, and even though i work more than full time and am pretty fried by read around time, I need to budget energy for this and I’d like to change it. Any ideas?we read an amazing Blood book recently (a hit for both and I could stop and explain). But,  for example, I’ve no idea how to Introduce her to physics without taking the amazing Jetta class (fond memories of my son doing egg drop in our Paris apartment and packing all the supplies in a suitcase). She goes to school. Museums and read alouds are my only venue. Her school does have an excellent science Olympiad program which she will try for next year.

any advice welcome. I somehow find it much easier to “pre-chew” books on French, which I don’t speak,  than science, which I also don’t speak. We have help on math. But as aside, this is how kids of doctors become doctors and kids of lawyers, well, lawyers 😉 

[Miss Tick]

Scientific American articles are long form. Great, but long. I've been getting Science News for years. That is much more short form. She could read it herself. They have a new version targeted for kids, but I've not seen it in person.

Have you tried "popular" science books like Sapiens or Spark? Some of the Guest Hollow books for this category.

You could consider essay collections like Second Harvest (before Mr Pollan became all about food) it Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, but Annie Dillard. Flipping through those, though, they are perhaps too philosophical for "kids", and I'm not sure how old she is.

Hmm, physics...

[wendyroo]

For science read alouds, simple fact transmission has never been a particularly high priority for me. Obviously, I want the books to contain correct information, but I don't aim for comprehensive or "useful". Watching a video of Mark Rober engineering a squirrel obstacle course probably doesn't directly hit many of the middle school science content goals, but I think it instills much more important science ideas.

I want my kids to appreciate that science is answering questions. That it is systematic trial and error.  That it is thinking about and studying interactions. And most importantly, that science is something everyone can do in everyday life.

So I tend toward "science" books that pull back the curtain and let kids see the process. All my kids LOVE Randall Monroe's books and the Horrible Science books. I read aloud a lot of books like The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, The Disappearing Spoon, Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon, How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World, etc.

[Clarita]

17 minutes ago, wendyroo said:

For science read alouds, simple fact transmission has never been a particularly high priority for me. Obviously, I want the books to contain correct information, but I don't aim for comprehensive or "useful". Watching a video of Mark Rober engineering a squirrel obstacle course probably doesn't directly hit many of the middle school science content goals, but I think it instills much more important science ideas.

Actually I would think a lot of Mark Rober's videos (when he describes his builds and stuff not the scam caller take down videos) really does cover a lot of middle school science content goals. Practical Engineering would be another channel and that guy I think only does science videos so it's easier to navigate to a physics/engineering video.

1 hour ago, madteaparty said:

But,  for example, I’ve no idea how to Introduce her to physics without taking the amazing Jetta class (fond memories of my son doing egg drop in our Paris apartment and packing all the supplies in a suitcase).

You can also get one of those subscription box things like Kiwi Crate (I think it's a different name for that age group) or CrunchLabs. Essentially they send you science-y activities in a box. Kiwi crate is suppose to be more in general but I think like 50-60% of the boxes we get (for my little kids) are physics-based. From what I see of CrunchLabs and knowledge of Mark Rober I would imagine most of those are going to be physics-based as well.

 

[madteaparty]

43 minutes ago, Miss Tick said:

Scientific American articles are long form. Great, but long. I've been getting Science News for years. That is much more short form. She could read it herself. They have a new version targeted for kids, but I've not seen it in person.

Have you tried "popular" science books like Sapiens or Spark? Some of the Guest Hollow books for this category.

You could consider essay collections like Second Harvest (before Mr Pollan became all about food) it Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, but Annie Dillard. Flipping through those, though, they are perhaps too philosophical for "kids", and I'm not sure how old she is.

Hmm, physics...

They’re not all long form. We read the short ones 😉 thank you for the rest of the post! She’s almost 12 

[madteaparty]

36 minutes ago, wendyroo said:

For science read alouds, simple fact transmission has never been a particularly high priority for me. Obviously, I want the books to contain correct information, but I don't aim for comprehensive or "useful". Watching a video of Mark Rober engineering a squirrel obstacle course probably doesn't directly hit many of the middle school science content goals, but I think it instills much more important science ideas.

I want my kids to appreciate that science is answering questions. That it is systematic trial and error.  That it is thinking about and studying interactions. And most importantly, that science is something everyone can do in everyday life.

So I tend toward "science" books that pull back the curtain and let kids see the process. All my kids LOVE Randall Monroe's books and the Horrible Science books. I read aloud a lot of books like The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, The Disappearing Spoon, Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon, How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World, etc.

These are amazing suggestions, thank you. I forgot to mention podcasts. We did listen for a while to a BBC one about “30 animals that made us smarter”which was good 

[EKS]

In our read alouds I always went for compelling stories.  So books that just convey information wouldn't make the list.  If I wanted information, we'd use a well written, well regarded textbook (they do exist).

[madteaparty]

15 minutes ago, EKS said:

In our read alouds I always went for compelling stories.  So books that just convey information wouldn't make the list.  If I wanted information, we'd use a well written, well regarded textbook (they do exist).

Yeah same, looking for compelling as well. But there’s a balance. If I can pick the recent thing we read, The Book of Blood for example, there’s stuff Re vampires etc there as well as the function and shape of red blood cells. We are reading now about a famous cryptographer and it’s too thick on story (who cares that she had this housekeeper and then this other one) and very thin on actual codes and cyphers. 

[EKS]

3 minutes ago, madteaparty said:

it’s too thick on story

When I say "story" I don't necessary mean a narrative about people's lives.  There are compelling scientific stories too. 

[wendyroo]

1 hour ago, Clarita said:

Actually I would think a lot of Mark Rober's videos (when he describes his builds and stuff not the scam caller take down videos) really does cover a lot of middle school science content goals. Practical Engineering would be another channel and that guy I think only does science videos so it's easier to navigate to a physics/engineering video.

I agree that a ton of great concepts are taught in those types of videos; I just think they are a lot more subtly interwoven than in something like The Way Things Work. There are no bolded titles announcing that you are currently learning about Momentum or Electrical Insulators - it is much more whole-to-parts immersion in scientific concepts.

Another similar channel that I like is Stuff Made Here.

[EKS]

Some of the interesting science books we read when my kids were that age:

• The Magic of Reality
• The Third Chimpanzee (young people's edition)
• The Upright Thinkers
• Uncle Tungsten

 

[Quarter Note]

Oh so many...

Power Unseen: How Microbes Rule the World

How I Killed Pluto: And Why It Had It Coming

Death by Black Hole: and Other Cosmic Quandaries (anything by Neil deGrasse Tyson!)

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements

The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code

Napoleon's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History

(I'll probably add more to this list as I think of them.)

Plus, a classic that still gets my very highest recommendation:

Silent Spring (or any other of Rachel Carson's books)

Tell your daughter to have fun, from this mom who was once a twelve-year-old science-loving girl, too!

 

[domestic_engineer]

4 hours ago, wendyroo said:

I agree that a ton of great concepts are taught in those types of videos; I just think they are a lot more subtly interwoven than in something like The Way Things Work. There are no bolded titles announcing that you are currently learning about Momentum or Electrical Insulators - it is much more whole-to-parts immersion in scientific concepts.

Another similar channel that I like is Stuff Made Here.

I know, OP, you asked about read-alouds, but I would argue that videos are a great way to "pre-chew" the physical sciences, especially if your brain is already fried at that time of night.  Growing up in a traditional school setting, the demonstrations were always what made those classes so much fun.  I think it also goes along with the idea of a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words.  

We also love Mark Rober & Stuff Made Here.  I'd also add to the list of wonderful science educators on YouTube:  Smarter Every Day and Veritasium.  Each of these creators explain things well and demonstrate the engineering process repeatedly.

 

ETA:  aha!  I finally thought of a read-aloud involving the physical science.  Archimedes and the Door of Science by Jeanne Benedict. I haven't read it myself, though I did assign it to one child to read it himself.  Also, Guest Hollow's Chemistry in the Kitchen course uses Dr. Joe & What You Don't Know quite a bit

Edited April 18, 2023 by domestic_engineer
finally thought of readalouds that you asked for

[bookbard]

Kurzegesagt is a brilliant science communication organisation. They have their youtube channel, which is incredibly watchable animated science education, and their current book, IMMUNE, is both scientifically weighty and readable. I know a lot of gifted 9-10 yr olds who are obsessed with it. 

[goldenecho]

The Story of Science (secular curriculum) is a really great read aloud.  It tells how science changed through history.    My only issue is that it seemed to focus less on the "how" of science (though it does address it...just maybe it's not the main focus).   I supplemented with "Science in the Ancient World" (a Christian curriculum...but written by a nuclear chemist, so as far as chemistry goes, it's solid.  Pretty good on physics too.   He's a creationist, so if that's not your view you might want to skip the biology).  Anyways, they have great experiments and really solid, easy to understand explanations of the science.   I would read the story of different scientists and how they affected history in Story of Science, and then when we got to the Greeks (where "Science in the Ancient World" starts, I would supplement by doing the experiments and reading his explanation of them.   Before that, I used Dr. Dave's "Science of Ancient Egypt" unit studies...another one I like the writing on, though it's not at the level of Story of Science. 

Another really good one for middle school science is Ellen McHenry's unit studies (the writing is great--plus there's humor). 

[Shoeless]

We really liked Ellen McHenry's unit studies, too.  She is a YEC, in case that doesn't work for you.  We used all of her science units except the one on Rocks because she is very firm about her YEC position in the course description, and that wasn't going to work for us. 

There is also the Horrible Science series.  You might find some fun titles looking over the booklists in BYL or Guest Hollow. 

[HomeAgain]

My youngest really enjoyed Hakim's Story of Science.

Many of our read alouds were either very detailed picture books or mostly biographical (Archimedes and the Door of Science, Along Came Galileo..).  I've just ordered The Disappearing Spoon on audio cd for in the car, but that'll be for next year.