Science in the Ancient World Review

I bought "Science in the Ancient World" by Jay Wiles for my 7th grader, Mikaela. She cannot tell me enough how much she enjoys it! It is an amazing text book. Every lesson has a {simple} science experiment. She reads part of her lesson, performs her experiment, reads the rest of lesson which explains her experiment, and has an activity for her science notebook. She may have to write about her experiment, draw a picture or diagram, or write a paragraph about a person or event at that time in history.

The experiments call for things that most people have around their homes. If it is something you need to purchase, it is usually inexpensive and readily available. The book has a list of supplies you will need for every.single.experiment in the front of the book. There is even a list of supplies that may be hard to come by, so you can get those in plenty of time.

The experiments are simple enough for her to do {mostly} independently, but not so simple that they seem irrelevant or boring. It's her favorite part of science!

She does science Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week. It takes her less than 30 minutes, and that is counting experiment prep, clean up, and her lesson review.

{learning about sound waves and pitch}

In this experiment, she took an empty tin can, wrapped plastic wrap around it tightly, and poured pepper on the plastic. Her sister put her mouth right under the can and said "aaaaaah" in a deep pitch, and then a high pitch. We also experimented with volume, and how the pepper "jumps" around the plastic wrap differently with each pitch/volume increase. It was simple, effective, and very interesting {to all of us!}.

We will be using his other books next year!