Science progression, e-Textbooks
Finding eTextbooks for this assignment, I was amazed at how many texts are available online, and at the broad range of levels also available -- from introductory courses to college-level.
I wanted to think about a science curriculum arranged differently from the way typically done in Florida schools. My list starts in Grade 8 and continues to Grade 12, five books in sequence. I think the current arrangement in the State standards follows a notion that some subjects are inherently more difficult to grasp than others, such as chemistry and physics. I think we may be selling our students short, so I've arranged these science topics without regard to such perceptions of difficulty, and instead ordered them in a way that makes sense to me by scale. So, instead of an environmental or earth science base, I've started with the study of the fundamentals of our universe -- mass and energy; physics. Although a tough topic, this book is quite accessible. The courses then rise in scale: from physics to chemistry, biology, geology, then finally astronomy. It's an unconventional progression, but it makes sense to me.
From the Global Text Project:
Conceptual Physics, Crowell
http://www.lightandmatter.com/cp/index.html
Grade 8
From Openstax CNX:
Chemistry: Atoms First
https://cnx.org/contents/RTmuIxzM@8.1:uXg0kUa-@4/Introduction
Grade 9
From the Open Textbook Library:
Biology 2e
https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/BookDetail.aspx?bookId=167
Grade 10
From the Open Textbook Library:
Grade 11
From the Open Textbook Library:
Grade 12
I wanted to think about a science curriculum arranged differently from the way typically done in Florida schools. My list starts in Grade 8 and continues to Grade 12, five books in sequence. I think the current arrangement in the State standards follows a notion that some subjects are inherently more difficult to grasp than others, such as chemistry and physics. I think we may be selling our students short, so I've arranged these science topics without regard to such perceptions of difficulty, and instead ordered them in a way that makes sense to me by scale. So, instead of an environmental or earth science base, I've started with the study of the fundamentals of our universe -- mass and energy; physics. Although a tough topic, this book is quite accessible. The courses then rise in scale: from physics to chemistry, biology, geology, then finally astronomy. It's an unconventional progression, but it makes sense to me.
From the Global Text Project:
Conceptual Physics, Crowell
http://www.lightandmatter.com/cp/index.html
Grade 8
From Openstax CNX:
Chemistry: Atoms First
https://cnx.org/contents/RTmuIxzM@8.1:uXg0kUa-@4/Introduction
Grade 9
From the Open Textbook Library:
Biology 2e
https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/BookDetail.aspx?bookId=167
Grade 10
From the Open Textbook Library:
Physical Geology
https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/BookDetail.aspx?bookId=269Grade 11
From the Open Textbook Library:
Astronomy
http://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/BookDetail.aspx?bookId=390Grade 12
I used open source textbook content to put together a "new" textbook focused on all the science standards for grades 6-8, so that teachers could have a textbook that they could use with their students in prep for the Middle School Science test that covers all three years.
ReplyDeletehttps://florida.theorangegrove.org/og/items/3bb11f14-60ee-4fb9-9c30-c9daaa860a51/1/