Middle-School Texts Donstrongtstrong Make the Grade.pdfVIP

Middle-School Texts Don’t Make the Grade Thousands of teachers are saddled with error-filled physical was too abstract or required dexterity science textbooks that fail to present what science is all beyond their abilities. We paid atten- about. Physicists deserve some of the blame. tion to the texts’ readability, because we knew that students’ reading level was a general concern—some impor- tant related issues are discussed in John Hubisz box 1 on page 52. We also noted at- tractiveness, quality of illustrations, id you know that elephant vocal sounds occur at about and material such as laboratory activities, suggested home D activities, exercises to test understanding, and resource 400 Hz and can’t be heard by humans? The caretaker at your local zoo didn’t either. But your children may have suggestions. been taught that tidbit if their science class used one of Our study, available on the World Wide Web at the most popular middle-school physical science texts. I /curriculum/book.html, deter- learned of the elephant blunder and many other problems mined that, according to the criteria we set forth, none of with