New Additions to Book List

I have just added two new titles to my reading list. One is purely about teaching an learning science, Jack Hassard's "The Art of Teaching Science: Inquiry and Innovation in Middle and High School" (ISBN 0-19-515533-5) because it asks teachers to view teaching science as an art, and to add aspects of many different disciplines into a science class. Many of the types of experiential learning activities I use with adult learners are included as lessons for younger students. I think this approach works with all age groups because in our deepest core, it is the way we really learn to know something. We learn by doing and experiencing. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.
The second is 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles C. Mann, ISBN 1-4000-3205-9. A very nice compendium of what indigenous peoples of the Americas were like before the arrival of the Europeans. No Science for Indians? I think not! Huge civilizations, running water, advanced mathematics, large community farms were all a tiny part of what the American continents carried in technology. I'm still in the process of reading and rereading this book, it keeps me coming back.
See you later!