Don't Try This at Home!: Science Fun for Kids on the Go - Hardcover

Vicki Cobb is a pro at explaining the cohesive and adhesive properties of water. but she can never seem to remember that plants like water too! She finally had to decorate her home with artificial plants to keep from killing the live ones.

Ever since Science Experiments You Can Eat, Vicki Cobb has been delighting children, parents, and teachers with the fun of making science discoveries. Now, with the new Science Play series, she sets her sights on the youngest children. who are natural scientists and are always experimenting. Vicki Cobb and her husband divide their time between their homes in White Plains, New York. and Manchester, Vermont.

Grade 4-6-A collection of over 60 easy-to-do activities and demonstrations to perform in schools, parks, restaurants, or while traveling. They include curling a dandelion stem, observing the strobe effect on a computer screen, and detecting stress points in plastic. The principle behind each activity is carefully explained. Some of the experiments, such as the "law abiding balloon" (the movement of a balloon in a moving automobile), appear in more than one of the author's previous books. Although some of the observations could be used as a starting point for science projects, the value of the book lies in helping children become more observant, to question what is really happening, and to learn the scientific principle(s) behind the observation. Although some of activities presented can be found elsewhere, many are interesting adaptations, such as skipping a stone on sand or using a rhododendron to tell the temperature. Frequent black-and-white cartoons break up the text and add a light touch to the presentation. The concept of looking for scientific principles anyplace one might be is well presented here.
Kathryn Kosiorek, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Brooklyn, OH
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.