26 chapters
6 hour read
Selected Chapters
26 chapters
WORLD BOOK COMPANY
WORLD BOOK COMPANY
One of the results of the World War has been a widespread desire to see the forces of science which proved so mighty in destruction employed generally and systematically for the promotion of human welfare. World Book Company, whose motto is The Application of the World's Knowledge to the World's Needs, has been much in sympathy with the movement to make science an integral part of our elementary education, so that all our people from the highest to the lowest will be able to use it for themselve
54 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
PREFACE
PREFACE
A collection of about 2000 questions asked by children forms the foundation on which this book is built. Rather than decide what it is that children ought to know, or what knowledge could best be fitted into some educational theory, an attempt was made to find out what children want to know. The obvious way to discover this was to let them ask questions. The questions collected were asked by several hundred children in the upper elementary grades, over a period of a year and a half. They were th
4 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
TO THE TEACHER
TO THE TEACHER
Do not test the children on the narrative description which introduces most sections, nor require them to recite on it. It is there merely to arouse their interest, and that is likely to be checked if they think it is a lesson to be learned. It is not at all necessary for them to know everything in the introductory parts of each section. If the children are interested, they will remember what is valuable to them; if they are not, do not prolong the agony. The questions which accompany and follow
4 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Frederic Burk, president of the San Francisco State Normal School, I am most under obligation in connection with the preparation of this book. His ideas inspired it, and his dynamic criticism did much toward shaping it. My wife, Heluiz Chandler Washburne, gave invaluable help throughout the work, especially in the present revision of the course. One of my co-workers on the Normal School faculty, Miss Louise Mohr, rendered much assistance in the classification and selection of inferences. Miss
45 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER ONE
Section 1. A real place where things weigh nothing and where there is no up or down. Why is it that the oceans do not flow off the earth? What is gravity? What is "down," and what is "up"? There is a place where nothing has weight; where there is no "up" or "down"; where nothing ever falls; and where, if people were there, they would float about with their heads pointing in all directions. This is not a fairy tale; every word of it is scientifically true. If we had some way of flying straight to
42 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER TWO
SECTION 6. How liquids are absorbed: Capillary attraction. Why do blotters pull water into themselves when a flat piece of glass will not? How does a towel dry your face? Suppose you could turn off nature's laws in the way that you can turn off electric lights. And suppose you stood in front of a switchboard with each switch labeled with the name of the law it would shut off. Of course, there is no such switchboard, but we know pretty well what would happen if we could shut off various laws. One
24 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER THREE
Section 10. Levers. How a big weight can be lifted with a little force; how one thing moving slowly a short distance can make another move swiftly a long distance. Why can you go so much faster on a bicycle than on foot? How can a man lift up a heavy automobile by using a jack? Why can you crack a hard nut with a nutcracker when you cannot crack it by squeezing it between two pieces of iron? "Give me a lever, long enough and strong enough, and something to rest it on, and I can lift the whole wo
38 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FOUR
Section 15. Heat makes things expand. How does a thermometer work? What makes the mercury rise in it? Why does heat make things get larger? When we look at objects through a microscope, they appear much larger and in many cases we are able to see the smaller parts of which they are made. If we had a microscope so powerful that it made a tiny speck of dust look as big as a mountain (of course no such microscope exists), and if we looked through this imaginary microscope at a piece of iron, we sho
36 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER FIVE
Section 21. How heat gets here from the sun; why things glow when they become very hot. If we were to go back to our imaginary switchboard we should find a switch, between the heat and the light switches, labeled Radiation . Suppose we turn it off: Instantly the whole world becomes pitch dark; so does the sky. We cannot see the sun or a star; no electric lights shine; and although we can "light" a match, it gives no light. The air above the burning match is hot, and we can burn our fingers in th
22 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SIX
Section 28. What sound is. What makes a dictaphone or a phonograph repeat your words? What makes the wind howl when it blows through the branches of trees? Why can you hear an approaching train better if you put your ear to the rail? If you were to land on the moon tonight, and had with you a tank containing a supply of air which you could breathe (for there is no air to speak of on the moon), you might try to speak. But you would find that you had lost your voice completely. You could not say a
17 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER SEVEN
Section 31. Magnets; the compass. What makes the needle of a compass point north? What causes the Northern Lights? For many hundreds of years sailors have used the compass to determine directions. During all this time men have known that one point of the needle always swings toward the north if there is no iron near to pull it some other way, but until within the past century they did not know why. Now we have found the explanation in the fact that the earth is a great big magnet. The experiment
14 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHT
Section 33. Making electricity flow. What causes a battery to produce electricity? What makes electricity come into our houses? The kind of electricity you get from rubbing (friction) is not of much practical use, you remember. Men had to find a way to get a steady current of electricity before they could make electricity do any work for them. The difference between static electricity—when it leaps from one thing to another—and flowing electricity is a good deal like the difference between a sho
27 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER NINE
Section 41. Solutions and emulsions. How does soap make your hands clean? Why will gasoline take a grease spot out of your clothes? If we were to go back to our convenient imaginary switchboard to turn off another law, we should find near the heat switches, and not far from the chemistry ones, a switch labeled Solution . Suppose we turned it off: The fishes in the sea are among the first creatures to be surprised by our action. For instantly all the salt in the ocean drops to the bottom like so
41 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER TEN
Section 46. What things are made of: Elements. What is water made of? What is iron made of? Is everything made out of dust? One of the most natural questions in the world is, "What is this made of?" If we are talking about a piece of bread, the answer is, of course, "flour, water, milk, shortening, sugar, salt, and yeast." But what is each of these made of? Flour is made of wheat, and the wheat is made of materials that the plant gets from the earth, water, and air. Then what are the earth, wate
25 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Section 53. Chemical change helped by solution. Why does iron have to get wet to rust? Is it good to drink water with your meals? When iron rusts, it is really slowly burning (combining with oxygen). If your house is on fire, you throw water on it to stop the burning. Yet if you throw water on iron it rusts, or burns, better than if you leave it dry. What do you suppose is the reason for this? The answer is not difficult. You know perfectly well that iron does not burn easily; we could not make
27 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER TWELVE
Section 58. Analysis. How can people tell what things are made of? If it were not for chemical analysis, most of the big factories would have to shut down, much of our agricultural experimentation would stop, the Pure Food Law would be impossible to enforce, mining would be paralyzed, and the science of chemistry would almost vanish. Analysis is finding out what things are made of. In order to make steel from ore, the ore has to be analyzed; and factories could not run very well without steel. I
13 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
For giving children a practical understanding of such laws of electricity as affect everybody, the following simple apparatus is invaluable. It is the electrical apparatus referred to several times in the text. The only part of it that is at all difficult to get is the nichrome resistance wire. There is a monopoly on this and each licensee has to agree not to sell it. It can be bought direct from the manufacturer by the school board if a statement accompanies the order to the effect that it is n
3 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Conservation Reader
Conservation Reader
A small book bringing out in a simple and interesting manner the principles of conservation of natural resources has long been wanted, or there has been little on the subject that could be placed in the hands of pupils. It is to answer this need that Fairbanks' Conservation Reader has been prepared. The book touches upon every phase of conservation, but it deals at greatest length with saving the soil, the forests, and wild life. It is one of the author's main purposes to arouse a stronger senti
2 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
INSECT ADVENTURES
INSECT ADVENTURES
A new supplementary reader in nature study for the intermediate grades. A book containing a vast amount of information relating to insect life—the life story of the spider, the fly, the bee, the wasp, and other insects—told by one who was at once a lover of nature, a great scientist, and a most entertaining writer. Maeterlinck calls Fabre the "insects' Homer," and declares that his work is as much a classic as the famous Greek epic, and deserves to be known and studied as a classic. This is the
59 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
TREES, STARS and BIRDS
TREES, STARS and BIRDS
The usefulness of nature study in the schools has been seriously limited by the lack of a suitable textbook. It is to meet this need that Trees, Stars, and Birds is issued. The author is one of the most successful teachers of outdoor science in this country. He believes in field excursions, and his text is designed to help teachers and pupils in the inquiries that they will make for themselves. The text deals with three phases of outdoor science that have a perennial interest, and it will make t
1 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
SCIENCE for BEGINNERS
SCIENCE for BEGINNERS
To supply the need for a course that will give the preparatory training which any scientific study demands, Science for Beginners by Professor Delos Fall was made. The aim in this text is to win the interest of pupils, to give them conceptions of nature that are fundamental, and above all to ground them in the method of science. The subject matter has to do with the earth sciences, and principally with physics and chemistry. In the development of each topic, every advantage that the pupils' expe
1 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
NEW-WORLD SCIENCE SERIES
NEW-WORLD SCIENCE SERIES
The publication of books that "apply the world's knowledge to the world's needs" is the ideal of this house and it is intended that the different volumes of this series shall express this ideal in a very concrete way. Human Physiology. By John W. Ritchie , Professor of Biology, College of William and Mary. A text on physiology, hygiene, and sanitation for upper grammar or junior high schools. $1.60. Laboratory Manual for Human Physiology. By Carl Hartman , University of Texas. A manual to accomp
1 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE HERO OF THE LONGHOUSE
THE HERO OF THE LONGHOUSE
This story gives a portrayal of the noblest of Indians—Hiawatha. It follows established facts, and bares to the reader the heart of his race. It is a convincing tale. The training of the Indian youth is shown; the career of the hero as a warrior is told; his great work for peace with the Five Tribes is described. Besides the story, there is an account of the historical Hiawatha; also a complete Glossary giving definitions as well as pronunciations of the new Indian words. A map of the country of
48 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHEMCRAFT
CHEMCRAFT
You can perform a great many useful and practical chemical experiments, have a lot of fun, and learn the principles of chemistry, if you have a CHEMCRAFT outfit. And an outfit now will help you in chemistry later on. Each CHEMCRAFT outfit is a complete chemical laboratory containing many harmless chemicals, all needed apparatus, and a Manual of Instruction giving accurate information on the subject. CHEMCRAFT is real chemistry. These outfits are now used by many schools and are endorsed by profe
52 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CALUMET BAKING POWDER
CALUMET BAKING POWDER
It may be interesting to know which is the largest city in China—the largest river in Africa—but it is more important to know about the industrial life of your country—because when most of you go out into the world you will become active figures in the making, buying and selling of things. The Calumet Baking Powder factories, in Chicago and East St. Louis are the largest, most modern and sanitary plants of their kind on earth. More pounds of Calumet are sold than of any other brand of baking pow
51 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
VENUS PENCILS
VENUS PENCILS
As soft as you wish; as hard as you please; but always smoother than you had dreamed. Any Venus Pencil you select glides over the paper with a restful freedom from friction. Of the same superb quality as the Venus Pencil...
21 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter