Reviews

Glencoe: Science Interactions - Course 1, 2, & 3, Teacher Wraparound Edition, 11 authors, Glencoe/ McGraw-Hill, 1998, ISBN0-02-828055-5

The stated objective of this program is to produce an integrated approach to the different sciences. The introduction contains a lot of description of pedagogical approaches. The promise is to "describe what is being taught, why it is being taught, and how it connects to themes." The themes are: Energy, Systems and Interactions, Scale and Structure, and Stability and Change. Only the textual material was reviewed. The approach is to start with activities and demonstrations to get the student's attention. The intent is to have students start by trying to decipher what is causing a discrepant event. This is laudable, but the result is disappointing. Most of the activities are familiar, but the question at the end of a chapter tends to be, "Where is the meat?" The integrated approach amounts to verbal descriptions without enough depth to understand what the disciplinary connection really is. The impression is that "integration" was used as a sales pitch more than showing real interconnections among disciplines.

General Conclusions:

This text contains a very large number of errors ranging from misleading statements and figures to incorrect science. A sampling of errors and suggestions are given below. They fall into three general categories:

1. The photos and other graphics are always very attractive, but they often do not illustrate the appropriate science. The work done by graphic artists needs to be checked by a scientifically knowledgeable person.
   
   
2. The authors appear to be very knowledgeable about chemistry and earth science, but they have made far too many errors in physics. The science content in general needs to be checked by outside experts.
   
   
3. There are a large number of inconsistencies between the text material and the wraparound notes for the teacher. It often appears that these notes were written for a preliminary version of the text rather than the final version

Students at this level are inclined to completely believe what they read. If the material is unclear or inconsistent, it can be exceedingly frustrating for the student as well as the teacher. If the science that is presented is wrong, it would probably be better if the student had never seen the material presented. The situation is almost as bad for the teacher who is perhaps not as expert in an area as they would like to be. All too often teachers at this level have had minimal training in physics, so it is doubly important that the physics, in particular, in a text be correct and clear. Textbook publishers and/or authors need to utilize the expertise of the large number of physics professors who are available and willing to help with the proper presentation of this science to our children.

Safety:

• Page 40 - The activity calls for protective clothing and safety glasses and the student in the picture has neither.
• Page 196 - The student pictured does not have the required "protective clothing" on.
• Page 482 - The text calls for "eye protection," but the discussion does not. There does not seem to be any interaction among the graphic artists and the "authors" to ensure that the pictures, drawings, or diagrams illustrate what is intended. This is true for all the books specifically reviewed.

Figures:

• Page 25 - The pictures do not clearly show the difference between the Appalachians and the Rockies.
• Page 31 - You can't see what is being done in Figure A.
• Page 35 - In Figure 1-6, the discussion of the figure and under Visual Learning the reader will be convinced that the distances between latitude lines will be equal.
• Page 42 - The lunar rock is not a rectangular solid and it has a mass of 443 grams.
• Page 57 - The speed of light was not first timed in 1926. The figure is meaningless. Something could be made of the scale, but the shadows have to go. The topic itself requires more physics than these students are able to handle.
• Page 64 - The student is supposed to be observing refraction and the pencil is not even in the water.
• Page 66 - The orientation of light and prism is wrong for seeing the spectrum. (Note: Most books handle this topic poorly even though it is easy to set up the experiment for children. A good opportunity missed!)
• Page 70 - It would be better to use a blue filter that cut out red light.
• Page 74 - There is no way that these colors can be right.
• Page 88 - In Figure 3-2, the string's motion is much too large.   In Figure 3.3C, the sound wave representation is wrong in location, wavelength, and shape.
• Page 95 - Figures 3.7A and B show a larger amplitude rather than a longer length which will result in a wrong impression.
• Page 96 - The figure is useless – it doesn't show what it purports to show.

[In 100 pages we note almost 20 errors in figures. There are over 30 errors in figures in the rest of this volume alone. Surely there is a need for at least one of the eleven 'authors' to spend some time with the graphic artists.]

Mathematics:

• Page 26 - Students are directed to find the volume given only the depth and width.
• Page 30 - The scale (2cm =5ft) is too large.
• Page 40 - The formula for the volume of a sphere that is given is wrong.
• Page 53 - An inch from the flashlight is much too close.
• Page 59 - The students are asked to find "How long" and they have not yet been given the tools to answer the question.
• Page 131 - It is not obvious that the bags are the same size, but given that, the answer to the Visual Learning question should be "because the cans have greater mass than the paper towels."
• Page 147 - The expected answer to Using Math a. is "a liter" but "liter" is not listed as an SI base unit nor is its conversion to base units mentioned. The graph in Figure 5-10 cannot be read to the accuracy quoted.
• Page 176 - The reader is not told what a Venn diagram is so the Close Activity can’t be answered.
• Page 383 - The answer to one of the questions is given as southwest whereas from the figure it is south of west but not 45 degrees.
• Page 385 - The answer to question 3 is '7.8' not '8' times. In addition the student has not been told how to calculate speed yet.
• Page 386 - The reader is told that the distance traveled by the roller coaster in a certain time is its average speed that is nonsense.
• In the figure on page 390 we are not told whether these are average or instantaneous speeds.
• Page 391 - If you drove 'to and from the amusement park' the distance would be greater than '32 kilometers' because the streets are not straight.
• Page 399 and elsewhere - m/s/s is unacceptable and should be replaced by m/s^2 or m/s2 everywhere. In addition the Sample Data on this page has too many significant figures.
• Page 401 - The answer to Conclude and Apply is closer to 3.7 and the picture is not drawn to scale and the units along the axis are not cm as suggested by the discussion.
• Page 414, especially Figure 13.1 B - It should be noted that Galileo found that neglecting resistance all objects fall with the same acceleration. If dropped from the same height then they would fall to the ground in the same time. The physics and associated mathematics at this point is getting very bad and there is no reason for it. Even average students at this point should be extremely frustrated.

Basic Information: Scattered throughout the text are pieces of information, references to other material, and suggestions. Some of the information is wrong, some references are to materials that don't exist, and some suggestions are out of the range of the abilities of the audience.

• Page 22 there is no mention of the fact that what would most likely be seen crossing the U.S. in a plane would be the tops of clouds and on page 26 to suggest that passing over North Carolina they would see lots of tobacco farms is silly as one could not tell what or if crops were being grown.
• Page 41, students are asked, "How heavy is it?" and what is really wanted is the mass. In the Assessment students are told to use their graphs to answer question 1, but it is not clear what question 1 is.
• Page 53 there is no mention of the size of the shadow, which is the most obvious observation.
• Page 64 the reader is asked to 'Imagine a toy truck' this is difficult and not too helpful anyway.
• Page 71 the text says yellow, magenta, and cyan are the primary pigment colors not red, yellow, and blue (as implied by Uncovering Preconceptions).
• Science at Home on page 81 assumes that the Moon is near the horizon in early evening and doesn’t mention that this should be done with a full Moon.
• Troubleshooting on page 85 says 'pluck it with an upward motion.' It works just as well with a downward motion; in fact, is easier to do and that is the way that it is pictured in the text.
• Page 94 Explore Materials calls for a 'metal ruler' and the picture is of a plastic ruler.
• The Possible Hypotheses on page 98 are both wrong and the Expected Outcome on page 99 is wrong.
• Page 103 the table is not shown vibrating which is the point of the figure.
• Page 119 the ice cubes and lemon in the tea make the figure non-homogeneous.
• Page 122 the numbered answers do not correspond to the numbers on the questions. In addition, the iron particles were not separated by the magnet; they were separated from the sulfur.
• Page 125 everything in the refrigerator is a substance. Also 'heterogeneous' and 'homogeneous' have not yet been introduced.
• The answer to Question 4 on page 129 is 'Yes' one word answers are not acceptable.
• Page 137 mentions a rainbow which is a particular physical phenomenon and implies all the colors from red to violet. Here there are specific colors of light that are characteristic of the material.
• Page 139 under Preparation 'always' should be 'usually' and it should be mentioned that the plasma state is the most abundant state of matter, but not in the conditions typically found on Earth.
• Question 1 on page 149 can't be answered as there is no way that one can tell that the substance shown is sugar.
• As far as the reader can tell the drink on page 156 is unsweetened (as it should be for the topic at hand) and yet is told that it tastes as sweet at the top as at the bottom. Also, is the "clear solution" transparent or colorless? The picture is not colorless which is what one would expect.
• Page 169 has no "Step 7 above."
• Where are the labels for the diagram on page 170? Also, where is the Investigate that is referenced?
• Three questions are asked on page 185 and this Answer to Question might answer one of them. In the text a funnel is called for, but does not appear in the Materials list.
• Page 195 - Except for the picture the student would not know not to place the litmus paper in the solution.
• The answer to Understanding Ideas 3 on page 410 is wrong.
• The Content Background on page 426 expresses nonsense. On the same page the acceleration due to gravitation is inexplicitly given as 7.8m/s2 without explanation.
• The path of the volleyball on page 424 is non-physical.
• Isaac Newton was born in 1643 (not 1642 as indicated on page 425) and Galileo died in 1642.
• The skydivers pictured on page 439 are falling at constant velocity and the caption speaks of constant acceleration. The elephant and mouse with air resistance will have a dramatically different result because of the difference in surface area.
• Where are the questions that are answered on page 447?
• Page 440 - The rocket is already in orbit at position 1 so it can't have been launched from there. What is the significance of the changing colors?
• Where is the Flex Your Brain activity mentioned on page 494?
• Assessment on page 495 has the slope longer and it should be smaller.
• The students are observing the effects of the waves and not the waves on page 543.
• On page 544 and 545 the transverse waves will move at right angles to the direction of the disturbance not the source.
• Critical Thinking 3's (page 571) answer should indicate that it is the train engine that has passed not necessarily the whole train.
• Connecting Ideas 3 & 4's answers on page 571 are nonsense.
• The equator is drawn incorrectly on page 603.
• On page 611 it is stated that the far side of the Moon is covered with craters, but doesn't mention that the near side is also.The answer to the Conclude and Apply 1 refers to the Full Moon, but the Full Moon is not included in the table. An important question to be answered is 'Why are there two tides?' Tides were linked to the Moon long before Newton answered this question.
• Discussion under Assess on page 624 suggests reminding the students about some nonsense relating the value of 'g' at the surface of the Moon having something to do with it weakly attracting the Earth.

The errors continue in the areas of electricity and magnetism. Charging a comb and explaining what happens with a nearby piece of paper (an insulator) or a piece of foil (a conductor) can lead to some excellent physics, but here it is missed. The Van de Graaff generator does not store charge in its base as it is grounded. The Earth contains the 'other' charge. The water analogy is not clear. A battery is not a 'charge pump.' The circuits with bulbs are drawn incorrectly. Lamps do not supply voltage. It is very difficult to find batteries with mercury in them the 'danger' is not there. You cannot 'map a magnetic force.'

General Comments

If one were forced to choose a book to use in Middle School, it is a sorry state of affairs that among the most used books in the country this one would have to be it. Our reviews go downhill from here. There is a huge amount of clutter that detracts on every page from the learning of science. However it is not only this book, but all the books that fill up the pages with non-essential information (careers, supposed threats to the environment, multicultural efforts, a multiplicity of things to do that are not relevant to the question at hand, topics well beyond that appropriate to this age level, and a great deal of mixing of the basic sciences so that the student has no idea where one ends and another begins.)

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Science Insights: Exploring Matter and Energy (Teacher Edition),
M. DiSpezio, M. Linner-Luebe, M. Lisowski, G. Skoog, and B. Sparks, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Menlo Park, CA 1996

Summary

The most important conclusion of this review is that there are an incredible number of errors of scientific fact as well as things stated in such a way that they will produce confusion even if they are not technically wrong. Some errors are to be expected from our past experience with elementary school science texts. A survey of texts at a lower level several years ago suggested that the state of affairs with regard to elementary science texts might be improving. However, this is not the case here, this Addison-Wesley text is unacceptably full of errors, omissions, and confusions.

Here we present a few examples of the kinds of errors that are common throughout the text. First, there are statements that are just scientifically wrong. Absolute zero is defined as the temperature where molecules are so cold that they don't move (p. 210). Newton's first law is stated incorrectly (p. 60). The statement is made that the force of gravity is 9.8 m/s2 (p. 56). In many places it is said that an object is a force rather than exerts a force (for example, paint can example on p. 112). Several times it is stated that the buoyant force on an object is greater than the object's weight, although it is clear that they are referring to an object in equilibrium (p. 91-93).

In addition to these errors, there are many, many sections that are written in such a way as to be very confusing to students. For instance, heat is defined differently in different places and used in the reading material in ways that are inconsistent with the correct definition. Chapter 11 uses the word 'electricity' with random meanings. In one sentence it means electric energy, in the next it may mean electric current, and elsewhere, electric charge. This problem arises because there is no real scientific definition of the word electricity. It is used merely as a generic term to describe the field of study of phenomena that involve electric charges. A careful writer avoids its use as much as possible. Also, in that chapter a water hose model is used to describe an open circuit. While it is just an analogy and therefore not technically wrong, it will leave the students with a mental picture of electrons spewing out into the air at the point where the circuit is broken. A frequent problem in the motion chapters is the incorrect implication of cause and effect. For example, consider the statement 'acceleration is a change in velocity that results from speeding up, slowing down or changing direction,' which occurs on page 43. Speeding up is a change in velocity it doesn't cause a change in velocity. Later in the same page, we find the statement that 'acceleration caused by motion in a circle is called centripetal acceleration.'

The pedagogical material in the text is not much better than the reading material. The questions provided are often poorly worded, address material not covered, or require an answer that is parroted back from the text but certainly not understood. An example of the latter is the question in Chapter 2 that asks, "What is space-time?" Students can surely repeat the one sentence definition given in the text, but they will have learned nothing. On page 213, radiation is expected as an answer to an in-text question, but radiation is not introduced for another two pages. Likewise in the Check Your Understanding section on page 430, students are asked to explain how a rainbow is produced, but they have not been told that different amounts of refraction occur for different wavelengths so they can't possibly explain this. The statement of a true/false question says, "A prism separates white light into colors." This is listed as true, and it is; however, the light could be any combination of colors not just white.

This text has far too few activities in it. There is one major activity and usually a couple of very short ones per chapter. In no case would we consider the major activity provided to be the best activity that could have been done for that set of material. Middle school students should be experiencing investigative science at least every other class period. In order to do this, teachers will have to bring in many outside activities not in the book. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this, few teachers have the time or inclination to do it nor do most have the background for accomplishing this. Thus, students are much more likely to have an appropriately hands-on science class if the activities are included in their textbook.

The pedagogical materials provided for the teachers are inadequate in a number of ways. Most importantly, many, many answers to the questions in the student text are incorrect. For instance, on page 41, the numerical answer to the Skill Builder question is wrong. There are some problems in the way the question is asked, but no possible interpretation of the question could make this the correct answer. In the chapter on light and color, students are given a picture of a spectrum produced by a prism and ask to list the colors they see. The answer provided for the teacher is a pat ROYGBIV, but one would be very hard pressed to see anything other than red, yellow, green, and blue. Many other examples are provided in the detailed materials, which follow. Secondly, there is no content information for teachers with weak science backgrounds. As long as we have teachers who were trained as generalists teaching middle school science, this will be a serious omission - particularly when the student text is so poorly written.

In general many more ideas on special projects and connections to other fields are provided than any teacher will ever be able do and most of them are not particularly exciting. It is as if they had to have something to fit in that box for that chapter so they came up with something to fill the space. It would have been much better to have fewer and better ones. At the beginning of each chapter are suggestions for teaching strategies for gifted, at-risk and limited English proficiency students. The suggestions for the latter two almost always focus on definitions and condensing the main points of the chapter in a few sentences to be used as study aids. This may help these students pass the test, but it certainly won't help them learn science. The instruction for these students should be even more hands-on than the 'regular' instruction. Each chapter also begins with a section entitled 'Directed Inquiry'. This turns out to be a series of questions the teacher is to ask the students about a photograph. This bears little relation to scientific inquiry. It is also apparent that the authors of these materials do not know what 'operational definition' means in science. They have included it in their process skills list as it should be, but apparently they think it means giving everyday examples of a concept. Both these errors arise out of trying to include every possible educational buzzword in the book. 'Inquiry' is hot so we have to have it. Likewise, if it is on the process skill list, we have to show that we are teaching it - even if we don't know what it means. Publishers should not feel that every possible educational innovation has to be in every chapter. They should indeed be up on the latest in pedagogical techniques, but they should pick a few and do them well, not try to do them all and as a result do them poorly. The one positive point here is that the concept maps are actually good.

We include a list of things found particularly well done, but the list is unfortunately short.

In summary, no student will increase his or her understanding of science by using this text. At best they will memorize some facts and at worst they will become convinced that they are not capable of understanding science.

As middle school usually includes sixth grade, we looked at the Addison-Wesley Destinations in Science sixth grade book (c1995). In contrast to the Science Insights book, it was quite good. There were some errors such as the ubiquitous drawing of molecules in solids, liquids and gases which makes it looks like the density of the liquid is midway between that of the solid and gas, but the serious errors were very few in number. There was little unclear text. A number of experiments are included in the text and for the most part they are good ones. The answers in the teacher's material were for the most part correct. There was some background science for the teachers, although not enough. The Teacher's Edition tells the teacher what major related points students should remember from earlier grades (assuming they used the Destinations in Science series, of course). The teaching tips are good and contain little educational jargon. A section in each chapter discusses why students need to study that particular topic. In short, the physical science sections of this book were much better and could be recommended to teachers.

Major Errors and Omissions

At this point we feel that it would not be worthwhile adding eight pages of Lesser Errors and Confusing Statements. Obviously, NOT RECOMMENDED.