Do your middle school or high school students have trouble comprehending scientific reading? If you answered yes, we’ve got just the book for you! Here’s another question: Are you ready to have some fun in your classroom? Yes, again? Well, Once Upon an Earth Science Book is hot off the press. This new book by Jodi Wheeler-Toppen includes 12 interdisciplinary activities designed to create confident readers.

Once Upon an Earth Science Book is designed for middle and high school Earth science teachers and supports the Next Generation Science Standards and the reading and writing portions of the Common Core State Standards.

Each lesson includes a specific reading comprehension strategy that teachers can introduce. Then, working in groups, students can read a passage, fill in gaps in prior knowledge, and model reading strategies for one another. Next, students engage with sense-making activities like writing prompts, journal entries and other assignments. The book includes ideas for assessments as well.

Reading topics include glaciers, ocean garbage patches, hurricanes, the solar system, seasons, energy, geological dating, mountains, plate tectonics, and more.

One exercise has students reading an article called “On the Tracks of a Dinosaur” and pairing it with a hands-on activity. Students will be told that they have been called in to interpret a new dinosaur trackway that has been found along a local river. Using reading exercises, observations, measurements, and discussions, students will formulate a hypothesis about what could make the stride length increase along the trackway. This lesson includes several activities designed to get students reading, thinking, and using their imagination.

The book has everything needed to build a well-thought out lesson that will interest, entertain, and teach students.

Check out the sample chapter “Continents on the Move.” In this chapter, students will learn about Alfred Wegener’s supporting evidence for the concept of continental drift.

This book is also available as an e-book.

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