Science for Teachers and Librarians
2006 Imprints
Please feel free to add a signed review at the top of this list.
- Wonders of the Sea
Kendall Haven
Storytelling in the science classroom, and science in the library’s storytelling—this is a perfect guide to join literature with science by a master storywriter and storyteller. (Libraries Unlimited, 2005. 200 pp. $30.00. 1-59158-279-2.)
Bottom line: Highly recommended. david Loertscher
- Tales with Tails: Storytelling the Wonders of the Natural World. Kevin Strauss. Libraries Unlimited, 2006. Strauss visited lots of schools and did environmental projects with students such as taking them on walks in a nearby grove of trees or doing an analysis of life in a pond. But he wanted more. More realization that it not just the birds we discovered today or the little wiggly creatures, its bigger ideas we need to see and understand. Strauss decides that the power of storytelling can help kids see both the forest as a whole and the individual trees. In this book, he proceeds to teach both storytelling techniques and major ideas in environmental science. Then he provides many many stories linked to environmental traits: stories with animals, plants, and other ecological traits. There are many outline pages for use of the stories as upper elementary and middle school students study environmental science. The idea is a great one. Once your understand the author’s technique, it is off to the story section to find both stories and activities that fit into your curriculum. Here the author could do a better job of linking the usual science curriculum into your effort. Librarians are often confronted with kids doing environmental reports that end up being just fact gathering nonsense with little substance. There is often no so what to the project so students end up knowing a bit about a particular creature, but nothing about the environment or consequences of human intervention. Certainly, the power of story could help at the end of an activity or field trip to understand more deeply what has happened and what it all means. We can “tell students what it all means,” but do they “get it? Strauss is worth a try. You may not like his activities at times (I didn’t), but the idea is a sound one to build upon and to see if students can’t develop more hard thinking through the power of stories included in this book, or perhaps, in their own stories they create to illustrate big picture environmental ideas. David Loertscher, Dec. 26, 2006
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