more science explorer questions

[Pixie]

I am looking into buying the books for my 6th grader. Are the older editions okay to buy or is there any advantage in spending a little bit more and getting the latest editions? Did they just change the covers or was the text updated? Does anyone know?

[Staci in MO]

I'm not sure about the text, but the newer editions have more Internet links than the old.

I bought the old (I got most of them for about $1.50 - you can't beat that price). Since we usually don't go to the Internet links, it didn't matter much to us.

[Peggy in Va]

I bought a complete set of the 2005 ed. about this time last year and paid roughly $90.00 for it, shipping included. New, they run $287, not inc. shipping.

I think this ed. is fine. It has all the internet links anyone could ask for but it's not so old to be dated.

It took a bit of research and time to locate all the books (I didn't buy them as a set) but overall I think it was worth it. I had decided that I wasn't going to pay more than $9/bk and that had to inc. shipping. I ended up finding all of them at Abes Books; searching by ISBN number and then trying to coordinate as many books with the same buyer(s) as I could to save on shipping. Most I picked up for $1, a couple were as high as $8, but it all averaged out at the end. Like I said, it took a while, but it was worth it.

If you're looking to cover a specific area, say Life Science, (which would encompass roughly 5 individual books), you can find a teachers manual for about $40.

JMO I say go with an older, but not too old ed., and buy used. All of mine looked like they could have come straight from PH.

HTH

[Sue in St Pete]

If you do a search for Science Explorer posts by Angie W in TX, she has some experience with older versions. I think the only one she suggests that you get a newer version of is Astronomy (due to Pluto).