Joy Hakim: Finding the Stories in Science and History

“I’m convinced, and I hope to convince you, that science is not just for scientists. In the twentieth century, we compartmentalized knowledge; in the information age, that doesn’t make sense. Today, you can be a hermit on a mountain peak and still have access to the world’s learning. For scholarship to be so available, so democratic, is unprecedented in world history. To use that opportunity well, we all need to be generalists first. And no field of knowledge is as basic or as creative as science. . . . that human quest to understand the universe underlies almost all other creativity. “ A Writer’s Reasons, from The Story of Science, Aristotle Leads the Way

A recent report from the National Science Board says, "The Nation that dramatically and boldly led the world into the age of technology is failing to provide its own children with the intellectual tools needed for the 21st century. . .There is no excuse for citizens in our technological society to say, 'I don't know anything about science.'"

In this 21st century, the most incredible era of science ever, scientific illiteracy is no longer acceptable. The 20th century was a golden age of physics, cosmology is now having a heyday, so are molecular and evolutionary biology. Anyone without basic knowledge of those sciences is missing the intellectual underpinnings of our time. What can we do? Reconsider the way we teach science, making it a broad inclusive subject. It's not isolated from the rest of the world, except in most school classes. Educators talk of multidiscipliniary. The Story of Science is intended to make it possible. These books and accompanying materials meet the requirements of the Maryland standards and many other states too. They go farther; they make connections between subjects.

Copublished by Smithsonian Books and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), The Story of Science attempts to present the ideas of the physical sciences in a narrative combining stories with coordinated "hands on" experiments and activities (found in the teaching materials). The books are beautifully designed and illustrated. They start with Thales, way back in ancient Greece, sojourn with Galileo, Kepler and Newton, take on Maxwell and the electromagnetic revolution, then Einstein, Bohr, Feynman and the moderns, finally looking at today's theories of the cosmos. These books are written for young readers of all ages–readers who want to think and learn, which includes everyone I know.

Increasingly,educators are turning to "content" subjects, like history and science, to teach critical reading. A History of US and The Story of Science were written to teach analytical reading. Teaching materials that accompany the books focus on vocabulary and reading skills. Some schools, using the books, have shown a documented rise in reading scores.

In the first book, readers travel back in time to ancient Babylon, Egypt, Greece, India, and the Arab world. They will explore the lives and ideas of people like Pythagoras, Archimedes, Brahmagupta, Al Khwarizmi, Fibonacci, Ptolemy, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas. The ancients, especially Aristotle and some of his Greek peers, asked the questions that would eventually lead to modern science. They often got the wrong answers, but that question-asking was essential. Read this book and you'll understand why.

In the second book, students watch as Copernicus's systematic observations place the sun at the center of our universe-to the dismay of establishment thinkers. After readers follow the achievements and frustrations of Galileo, Kepler, and Descartes, they will appreciate the amazing Isaac Newton, whose discoveries about gravity, motion, colors, calculus, and Earth's place in the universe set the stage for modern physics, astronomy, mathematics, and chemistry.

In this book, readers will look over Albert Einstein's shoulder as he and his colleagues develop a new kind of physics. It leads in two directions: to knowledge of the vast universe and its future (insights build on Einstein's theories of relativity), and to an understanding of the astonishingly small subatomic world (the realm of quantum physics). Students will learn why relativity and quantum theory revolutionized our world and led directly to the explosion of technology we all enjoy. Those two disciplines provide what are perhaps the most important ideas in modern science, maybe of all time. How can such awesome power come from something so small? Read about the road to discovery of the atomic bomb.