Books in Exploring Our World series

Bridges, furniture, musical instruments, games, vehicles―all of these things were invented and improved upon by people who love to put stuff together, take stuff apart, and figure out how things work!In Explore Makerspace! With 25 Great Projects, readers ages 7 through 10 explore what it means to be an engineer. They discover how inventors use science, art, and math to create new and exciting structures, games, and more. Readers also learn how to set up their own makerspaces at home, using inexpensive and easy-to-find supplies for their tinkering projects.Humans have been inventors throughout history. From the wheel to the rocket, scientists and other engineers have designed new technologies that have made daily life easier and stretched our horizons far beyond our own atmosphere. But inventions don’t have to be full of computer chips or other sophisticated parts. Designing the fastest toy car made from recycled materials can be just as thrilling!Makerspaces can be found in schools, libraries, community centers, and homes all around the country. These are places where both children and adults can work with materials and use the engineer design process to come up with new ideas. Here, imagination, art, and logic combine to produce lasting lessons in science, math, and physics.In Explore Makerspace! With 25 Great Projects, readers learn how to think proactively when faced with a challenge and discover the trial-and-error processes that lead to new discoveries. They find out about the motivation behind some of the world’s most amazing inventions. Through STEAM projects ranging from designing a bridge to creating board games and musical instruments, children discover how to be an engineer.

The curious facts and exotic fun of the lives of seals and walruses. The lifestyle of the seals that entertain at marine parks has little to do with how seals, sea lions and walruses actually survive in the wild. Exploring the World of Seals explains how these North American pinnipeds have adapted to live in two habitats, on land and in water. This ancient group of sea mammals comes in wildly different sizes, from the 100-pound ringed seal to the 3-ton elephant seal, and the range of their behaviors varies just as widely. With their streamlined bodies, insulating blubber or fur, flippers where other animals have limbs and long necks, these marine mammals are built to navigate the water in search of food, yet most of them court, mate and give birth on land. How do seals and walruses regulate their body temperature? How do they see their prey and predators in the dim underwater light? What are the effects of massive oil spills on the survival of these species that have inhabited Earth for millions of years? Exploring the World of Seals provides these answers and many more. The Exploring the World of... series is written for young readers who are curious about the natural world and the appealing creatures that inhabit it. Like its companion titles, Exploring the World of Seals is packed with facts and offer outstanding value.

Discover the power of the weather in this full-color introduction to natural disasters for kids ages 7 to 10 that explores the science behind earthquakes, volcanoes, storms, wildfires, and tornadoes with STEM projects and real-world connections! Have you ever felt the ground beneath your feet move in an earthquake? Have you ever had to ride out a blizzard at home? Natural Disasters! With 25 Science Projects for Kids guides kids ages 7 to 10 through a scientific introduction to the forces behind extreme meteorological events. Earthquakes, volcanoes, storms, wildfires, and more affect people around the world and appear in the news almost daily. Plus, climate change adds more fuel to storms, affects water supply, and makes conditions ripe for wildfires and rising water levels. Learn the science behind why! • Through interactive STEM and STEAM projects that simulate natural disasters and the science behind them, such as modeling plate tectonics, diagramming atmospheric conditions, and science journaling, students learn about the mechanics of these disasters, how to prepare for them, and how to be of service to others experiencing them. • A focus on conservation will empower students to do their part to help curb climate change and mitigate the effects of natural disasters. • Readers learn about different kinds of extreme weather including Hurricane Katrina, flooding in Texas, California wildfires, and the tornadoes that struck southern United States in 2011. About the Explore Earth Science set and Nomad Press Natural Disasters! With 25 Science Projects for Kids is part of a set of four Explore Earth Science books that explore the earth, the atmosphere, and everything in between. The other titles in this series are Weather and Climate! With 25 Science Projects for Kids, The Water Cycle! With 25 Science Projects for Kids, and Rocks and Minerals! With 25 Science Projects for Kids. Nomad Press books in the Explore Your World series integrate content with participation, encouraging readers to engage in student-directed learning. Combining content with inquiry-based projects stimulates learning and makes it active and alive. Nomad’s unique approach simultaneously grounds kids in factual knowledge while allowing them the space to be curious, creative, and critical thinkers. All books are leveled for Guided Reading level and Lexile and align with Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards. All titles are available in paperback, hardcover, and ebook formats.

The wild, wary gray wolf. The largest wild member of the dog family, the gray wolf stalks much larger mammals, such as the elk, caribou and moose. How does it succeed? Built to run, the long-legged wolf on the hunt uses its powerful sight, hearing, smell and physical strength. But, like the domestic dog, the wolf is a social animal: it lives in a pack. In this fully illustrated introduction, young readers will learn how group living makes sense for the wolf, allowing it to form strong bonds and share tasks like rearing its young, finding food and communicating over long distances. They'll also find out how habitat destruction, poisoning campaigns and hunting have reduced gray wolf populations in much of North America. Full-color photographs provide close-ups and action shots, while the engaging text, sidebars and captions tell the life history of an animal that researchers agree has one of nature's most engaging personalities. Firefly Books' Exploring the World of... nature series was created for younger readers who are eager to learn more about the wild creatures of North America. Each title contains beautiful photographs that depict the animals in their natural habitats, while the highly readable text explores their daily lives -- where and how they make their homes, what they eat, how they hunt, how they communicate and how they raise their young.

In Explore Money! With 25 Great Projects, money is more than something to earn, save, and spend. It’s an opportunity to explore history, art, science, economics, and math! While checking out the change in their pockets and bills from their banks, young readers search for hidden treasures, learn how money can multiply, and see how countries keep their currency secure. Very large and very small numbers take on a new relevance when seen through the lens of money.Using familiar materials found in the home or classroom, young readers explore the cultural aspect of money as well as its physical properties, discovering how these properties have affected business and global relationships throughout history. Kids experiment with various substances to clean coins, scientifically test coin components, design their own currency, and plan how to allocate their own money. Understanding the whats, whys, and hows of currency helps children achieve financial literacy and establish a strong foundation for a healthy, life-long relationship with money.Explore Money! meets Common Core State Standards for literacy in language arts, and mathematics; Guided Reading Levels and Lexile measurements indicate grade level and text complexity.

Getting from one place to another sounds easy if you are on a straight piece of land, but what if you have to get over―or under―a body of water or a deep gorge? Build a bridge! Bridges are the great connectors. They allow us to travel the twists and turns, highs and lows, ins and out of every geographic feature in our world. Bridges! With 25 Science Projects for Kids introduces readers ages 7 to 10 to the concepts and vocabulary of bridge construction through the lenses of history, science, engineering, math, and technology. From the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to the Tower Bridge in London, bridges are a huge part of our life. But how are these amazing structures built? What forces keep it standing? What might cause it to fall down? And who decides which type of bridge to use? In Bridges! With 25 Science Projects for Kids,one of four titles in the Explore Engineering set, readers discover how these extraordinary feats of engineering are created, and apply what they have learned to hands-on, critical-thinking activities that include building different types of bridges, such as truss, cantilever, and suspension bridges, out of different materials and modeling different types of supports. They examine the natural forces that affect structure selection and appearance, and also learn about the types of support required for each. Trivia, cartoon illustrations, links to online videos and other sources, and clear diagrams round out this book and make it fun and interesting for class discussions. Following the guidelines set forth in the NGSS/NSTA engineering and design standards, teachers can feel comfortable using this book as a guide for targeted learning in their classrooms. In the Explore Engineering set, readers ages 7 to 10 develop foundational understanding of the physics that guides the building and maintenance of bridges, canals, dams, tunnels, and skyscrapers. Titles in the Explore Engineering set include Bridges! With 25 Science Projects for Kids;Canals and Dams! With 25 Science Projects for Kids; Tunnels! With 25 Science Projects for Kids; and Skyscrapers! With 25 Science Projects for Kids.Nomad Press books in the Explore Your World series for children ages 7–10 integrate content with participation. Common Core State Standards, the Next Generation Science Standards, and STEM Education all place project-based learning as key building blocks in education. Combining content with inquiry-based projects stimulates learning and makes it active and alive. Nomad’s unique approach simultaneously grounds kids in factual knowledge while allowing them the space to be curious, creative, and critical thinkers.

This book is in the shape of a square. Or is it a rectangle? The pages are 2-dimensional. Or are the pages 3-dimensional? Geometry is all around us! In Explore Shapes and Angles! With 25 Great Projects, readers ages 7 to 10 will have fun identifying the shapes and angles in their world. They’ll also learn how these shapes and angles are used in different situations and in different jobs, such as construction, engineering, and art. A kid’s world is made of shapes and angles―by encouraging readers to become savvy at identifying and using the different shapes, this book serves as the perfect introduction to geometry and a way to build a strong foundation in math skills that will serve them well as they are exposed to increasingly more complicated concepts. Hands-on, design-minded projects, such as designing a tree house, offer opportunities to discover how engineers and designers use shapes and angles to create strong structures. Readers are encouraged to use blocks, bodies, and yoga to mimic geometric shapes and find combinations so strong they’ll even hold up heavy weights. Links to online resources, fun facts, cartoon illustrations, and compelling content drive this introduction to basic geometry that will help children begin to establish a spatial relationship with real-world math and make it fun!

Coyotes are wily, secretive and extremely adaptive -- what young reader wouldn't be fascinated? Familiar to kids and adults alike through its many appearances in folk and popular culture, the multicolored coyote has the gray wolf to thank for its survival. As humans eliminated wolf populations across the continent over the last century, the coyote easily filled the gap. Today it is the most successful and most numerous large predator in North America. It makes its homes not only in the wild but increasingly in suburbs and even urban centers -- the coyote is wary of humans but is quite willing to enter the human world in pursuit of food. The coyote has a curious blend of characteristics that it shares with its dog-family relatives, the wolf and the red fox. Like the red fox, it has graceful, catlike movements. Like the wolf, it can hunt in packs but may also hunt on its own or with a partner. Exploring the World of Coyotes explains how the wily coyote achieved such great success, from its elaborate communication skills, mate selection and family life to its adaptive life skills and physical characteristics. The Exploring the World of... series is written for young readers who are curious about the natural world and the appealing creatures that inhabit it. Like its companion titles, Exploring the World of Coyotes is packed with facts and offer outstanding value.

Silently suspended in water, with only their eyes, nostrils and ears breaking the surface, these members of the crocodilian family play a terrifying sit-and-wait game with their prey, striking with lightning speed, chilling accuracy and a deadly bite stronger than any other living creature. Their victims stand little chance once held in their strong jaws. Land-dwelling prey are equally at risk--crocodilians can walk, gallop and leap at high speed, making them among nature's fiercest predators. The crocodile and alligator families descend from the reptiles that roamed Earth alongside the dinosaurs some 250 million years ago. Today, most of the land-dwelling crocodilians live in tropical lowlands, while the broad-snouted American and Chinese alligators have adapted to cooler temperatures. In Exploring the World of Alligators and Crocodiles, young readers will learn about the crocodilians' life history, physical characteristics, courtship displays, communication strategies and family life. They'll also find out how these semiaquatic reptiles rely on their senses and speed to survive--and why humans should keep their distance. The Exploring the World of... nature series was created for young readers who are eager to learn more about the wild creatures of the world. Each title contains beautiful photographs of the animals in their natural habitats and the highly readable text explores their daily lives and physical characteristics, how they make their homes, how they raise their young and what they eat. "This series has a different approach than typical animal books and goes beyond a basic introduction. The books provide the reader with another perspective and focus on different forms of survival tactics. Diagrams of the animals are presented describing different body parts and their functions. Another chapter discusses the natural talents of the animal... An extensive index is included. Recommended." --Library Media Connection, of the previous books in the series