Books in Science Masters series

Living on a world as vast as Earth, it can be easy to forget that our planet is just a tiny speck in a massive universe filled with planets, moons, stars, asteroids, comets, dark matter, and maybe even alien life! In this book, readers in grades 4-9 will learn about Earth’s place in the Milky Way and the larger universe, and how humans are learning about the endless frontier of space.This series features a variety of science topics aligned to NGSS standards. From mixing matter to the study of sound waves, each informative book includes a glossary, comprehension questions, and an activity for home or the classroom.

Combining ideas from philosophy, artificial intelligence, and neurobiology, Daniel Dennett leads the reader on a fascinating journey of inquiry, exploring such intriguing possibilities as: Can any of us really know what is going on in someone else's mind? What distinguishes the human mind from the minds of animals, especially those capable of complex behavior? If such animals, for instance, were magically given the power of language, would their communities evolve an intelligence as subtly discriminating as ours? Will robots, once they have been endowed with sensory systems like those that provide us with experience, ever exhibit the particular traits long thought to distinguish the human mind, including the ability to think about thinking? Dennett addresses these questions from an evolutionary perspective. Beginning with the macromolecules of DNA and RNA, the author shows how, step-by-step, animal life moved from the simple ability to respond to frequently recurring environmental conditions to much more powerful ways of beating the odds, ways of using patterns of past experience to predict the future in never-before-encountered situations. Whether talking about robots whose video-camera ”eyes” give us the powerful illusion that ”there is somebody in there” or asking us to consider whether spiders are just tiny robots mindlessly spinning their webs of elegant design, Dennett is a master at finding and posing questions sure to stimulate and even disturb.

Squeak! Grrr! CRACK! Shhh! Our world is filled with sounds big and small, pleasant and annoying. But how is all that sound created and what can it do? In this book, readers in grades 4-9 will learn how sound travels and the many roles it plays in our world. Sound helps us communicate, but it can do so much more. You might be amazed at how powerful sound waves can be when they let us see into the human body, set off a massive avalanche, or discover an ancient sunken ship. This series features a variety of science topics aligned to NGSS standards. From mixing matter to the study of sound waves, each informative book includes a glossary, comprehension questions, and an activity for home or the classroom.

A crack of lightning. The blue glow of a phone screen. A blinking firefly. The blazing sun. A camera’s rapid flash. No matter the source, light travels in waves, and it does so at a speed faster than anything else in the universe. But what is light, anyway, and how do we study it? In this book, readers in grades 4-9 will learn about light waves and light’s properties and how people–and animals–manipulate light for their own purposes.This series features a variety of science topics aligned to NGSS standards. From mixing matter to the study of sound waves, each informative book includes a glossary, comprehension questions, and an activity for home or the classroom.

Ragnarok. Armageddon. Doomsday. Since the dawn of time, man has wondered how the world would end. In The Last Three Minutes, Paul Davies reveals the latest theories. It might end in a whimper, slowly scattering into the infinite void. Then again, it might be yanked back by its own gravity and end in a catastrophic "Big Crunch." There are other, more frightening possibilities. We may be seconds away from doom at this very moment.Written in clear language that makes the cutting-edge science of quarks, neutrinos, wormholes, and metaverses accessible to the layman, The Last Three Minutes treats readers to a wide range of conjectures about the ultimate fate of the universe. Along the way, it takes the occasional divergent path to discuss some slightly less cataclysmic topics such as galactic colonization, what would happen if the Earth were struck by the comet Swift-Tuttle (a distinct possibility), the effects of falling in a black hole, and how to create a "baby universe." Wonderfully morbid to the core, this is one of the most original science books to come along in years.

Living on a world as vast as Earth, it can be easy to forget that our planet is just a tiny speck in a massive universe filled with planets, moons, stars, asteroids, comets, dark matter, and maybe even alien life! In this book, readers in grades 4-9 will learn about Earth’s place in the Milky Way and the larger universe, and how humans are learning about the endless frontier of space.This series features a variety of science topics aligned to NGSS standards. From mixing matter to the study of sound waves, each informative book includes a glossary, comprehension questions, and an activity for home or the classroom.

Energy flows all around you. It warms the air and powers our machines. In this book, readers in grades 4-9 will discover how power from the sun journeys to Earth’s surface and back out to space. The sun’s energy can be reflected, absorbed, used by plants and animals, given off, or trapped to warm the atmosphere. Learn how heat in the atmosphere is rising and what people can do about it. Earth’s energy flow affects every living creature on the planet―including you!This series features a variety of science topics aligned to NGSS standards. From mixing matter to the study of sound waves, each informative book includes a glossary, comprehension questions, and an activity for home or the classroom.

What will the weather do today? In this book, readers in grades 4-9 will learn about ways people have developed to predict the weather, from looking at the sky to running models on a computer. Temperature, pressure, and wind speed are among the factors that determine whether to look out for sunshine or a tornado. Weather prediction not only helps you plan your day, it can even save lives!This series features a variety of science topics aligned to NGSS standards. From mixing matter to the study of sound waves, each informative book includes a glossary, comprehension questions, and an activity for home or the classroom.

What will the weather do today? In this book, readers in grades 4-9 will learn about ways people have developed to predict the weather, from looking at the sky to running models on a computer. Temperature, pressure, and wind speed are among the factors that determine whether to look out for sunshine or a tornado. Weather prediction not only helps you plan your day, it can even save lives!This series features a variety of science topics aligned to NGSS standards. From mixing matter to the study of sound waves, each informative book includes a glossary, comprehension questions, and an activity for home or the classroom.

What do a carrot and a kangaroo have in common? They’re made of matter, just like everything else in the universe! In this book, readers in grades 4-9 will discover how we measure matter and how it changes, mixes, and reacts. These reactions make life possible!This series features a variety of science topics aligned to NGSS standards. From mixing matter to the study of sound waves, each informative book includes a glossary, comprehension questions, and an activity for home or the classroom.

A crack of lightning. The blue glow of a phone screen. A blinking firefly. The blazing sun. A camera’s rapid flash. No matter the source, light travels in waves, and it does so at a speed faster than anything else in the universe. But what is light, anyway, and how do we study it? In this book, readers in grades 4-9 will learn about light waves and light’s properties and how people–and animals–manipulate light for their own purposes.This series features a variety of science topics aligned to NGSS standards. From mixing matter to the study of sound waves, each informative book includes a glossary, comprehension questions, and an activity for home or the classroom.