History of Science

[Sweetest]

Looking for opinions on the Beautiful Feet History of Science guide...I'm considering it for next year. How difficult would it be to work around the religious aspects of the program? Does anyone know of a similar type of program that is secular? I can't find one.

Thanks!

[mcconnellboys]

Joy Hakim recently wrote a history of science book and it's great! (and secular)

Regena

[Wendy in ME]

I have my eye on this for next year as well as the Joy Hakim books. I can't wait to read the responses. I want to do something a bit different. I am one of those that just doesn't see the need for a real formal lab science until 7th or 8th grade. I just want to introduce them to lots of ideas to think about.

[Sweetest]

I can't wait to read these myself. Thanks for the suggestion. Before I posted, I did a search on Amazon for History of Science and didn't see this!

[kayinpa]

We did "history of science" this year for fourth grade, but I don't think my daughter was quite ready for it, although she enjoyed reading the books required (and especially like the Explorabook). The religious aspects would be quite easy to get around, they are just copying scripture verses in the science notebook easily skipped (and there is only a few of them). All the required books used in the program are secular (and most of the suggested ones as well if not all of them) Having not read the Joy Hakim book, I cannot compare the two, but if you are looking for a living books curriculum with some experiments to go along with it, then check out HOS.

Kay in PA

[magistramom]

We love the Hakim books as well, and living history/science books listed on Penny Gardner's Charlotte Mason site: http://www.pennygardner.com/

[Myrtle]

Roy Gallant has some great history of science books out and in my opinion, they are much better than Joy Hakim's. He does a good job carefully tracing the history of an idea in a way that I don't think Hakim does. To me her first volume seems more of a series of snap shots of various science topics in history rather than the development of an idea. And I dont' mean to say that Hakim isn't an entertaining or interesting read, I just don't think she connects all the dots the way I expect them to be connected in a history book. Gallant does a very good explaining (i.e. charitable treatment) the context in which the scientists were coming up with their theories so that the reader isn't rolling their eyes at how silly the theories are.

Some of Gallant's books are out of print but most of them can still be found used and via interlibrary loan. A title to start with is "The Ever Changing Atom" which is about the history of how people percieved matter starting with the ancients until modern nuclear physics, this one is written for middle school students. He has another book out on the history of the idea of evolution written for high school students.

I'm looking here on Alibris at used books and he has just a ton of them on all sorts of topics.

[Mama Lynx]

Thank goodness. Hakim's book makes me seasick, but I did not know about Gallant. Off to check out his work ...