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I received 700 Science Experiments for Everyone from Amazon today.

This is a book I’ve been toying with getting for awhile now, and I figure now is better than never. I’m thinking that this will be a great way to introduce my son to science, and give us both a great excuse to have some real fun.

The experiments in the book were compiled by UNESCO ( the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), which has a pretty good charter.

Let me start off with a quote from the preface:

You will be teaching yourself science, getting ready to join a science club or to take part in a school or county science fair. Then you will find the science textbooks easy to understand when you get to them. Best of all, you will be in the habit of having ideas and of trying them out, which is the common trait of all inventors and researchers from Edison to Einstein. That trait is the source of almost all human progress, from the invention of the wheel and the sailboat to placing a man-made moon in an orbit around the earth.

Doesn’t that just give you goose-bumps? I’m getting all giddy just reading it. I love reading this sort of thing because it can give the reader assurance that it is OK to wonder. It is OK to ask questions. It is OK to explore.

Some more :

During each experiment you will draw your own conclusions about what it means or proves — and it’s a good idea to write down your measurements and your conclusions in a special notebook. If your mind is as healthy and active as your muscles are, you will probably have many questions after each experiment — and you should write them down too.

Sign me up!

As for notebooks, nothing beats a Moleskine

The book starts with a review of the what/where/why’s of science, continuing with how children should learn science including experimenting, reading, observing, and taking field trips.

Chapter headings include:

• How to make some general pieces of equipment
• Plant Study
• Animal Study
• Rocks, soils, minerals and fossils
• Astronomy
• Air and air pressure
• Weather
• Water
• Machines
• Forces and inertia
• Sound
• Heat
• Magnetism
• Light
• The human body

I’m sort of into magnetism at the moment, so I’m happy to see experiments such as ‘How to increase the strength of an electromagnet’, and ‘How to study the magnetic field of a coil’

In flipping through, this definitely looks well worth the $15 bucks. Enjoy.