Galileo, one of history's best-known scientists, is introduced in this illuminating activity book. Children will learn how Galileo's revolutionary discoveries and sometimes controversial theories changed his world and laid the groundwork for modern astronomy and physics. This book will inspire kids to be stargazers and future astronauts or scientists as they discover Galileo's life and work. Activities allow children to try some of his theories on their own, with experiments that include playing with gravity and motion, making a pendulum, observing the moon, and painting with light and shadow. Along with the scientific aspects of Galileo's life, his passion for music and art are discussed and exemplified by period engravings, maps, and prints. A time line, glossary, and listings of major science museums, planetariums, and web sites for further exploration complement this activity book.

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Most of the activities in this book on Galileo are really scientific experiments

The only real complaint about "Galileo for Kids: His Life and Ideas, 25 Activities," is that I doubt there is a teacher in the country who would spend long enough on the famous scientist to do all of these activities. If they got to double figures that would be pretty impressive, but also somewhat doubtful. However, there are certainly some choice activities in this book by Richard Panchyk (Buzz Aldrin does the foreword) that will not only get young students interested in the life of Galileo but also fan their interest in the sciences.

This book makes it clear that while he is best known as an astronomer, Galileo was a genius who enjoyed science, mathematics, music, and art, and someone who sough the truth and believed there was no substitute for observation and experimentation. Despite being forced by the Church to recant his discovery that the sun was the center of the universe, Panchyk makes it clear that Galileo believed both science and religion help us to know ourselves. After a Timeline that begins with a new star being observed by the Chinese in 1054 to Galileo being reburied with proper honors in 1737, and a map of Italy, this book turns to Science and Astronomy Before Galileo, to set up how important he was in changing things. Astronomers including Peter Apian, Nicolaus Copernicus and Tycho Brahe are covered, as well as the Comet of 1577. The activities here include making initial lunar observations and how to use raw data, so you can see there is an initial focus on scientific metrology.

The second chapter details the Beginnings of Galileo's life, where you not only get to cook a renaissance meal (meatballs and pea soup), but also get to make a pendulum and pulsilogia. In chapter 3, Position at Pisa, Galileo began his career as a scientist. There are also sidebars on Dante, Johannes Kepler, and the Medicis so the religious, scientific and political contexts of the time are covered as well. Activities include not only the famous gravity experiment, put also the properties of the ellipse and the second part of lunar observation. The Telescope is the focus of the next chapter, which includes an aperture experiment and the floating needle experiment.

The Storm Builds is the subject of chapter five, signifying the coming collision between Galileo's science and the religion of the day. Here the activities are the perception of illumination and the mathematical problem represented by the roll of the dice (plus making a care package for Galileo because of the plague). Chapter six covers The Two Systems, with experiments on relative motion and projective motion. However, most of these chapters tell the story of what happened when Galileo was called before the Inquisition. Galileo's Last Days are covered in the last chapter, along with experiments on accelerated motion and charting the cycloid curve. The look at the life and times of Galileo is pretty strong to begin with, so when you add the activities and see that the vast majority of them are practical scientific experiments, then you have to be even more impressed. In fact, I could be wrong: I can now see a teacher breaking up the class into lots of groups and having them do different activities and sharing the results with their classmates, so getting to double figures could be pretty easy (although making meatballs can be seen as being practical too, since kids have to eat).

Throughout the book there are illustrations of the people, places and things in Galileo's life, many of which are contemporary to his time. The back of the book includes several pages of Resources. There are lists of the Popes and Grand Dukes of Tuscany during Galileo's time, a Glossary of Key Terms from "abjuration" to "volume," Key People from Peter and Philip Apian to Vincenzo Viviani, and Key Places from Arcetri to Venice. A list of Galileo's key writings is provided, along with some web sites specific to his life and works, and there is also a list of Planetariums an Astronomy/Space Museums to be found in fourteen states and the District of Columbia. If you are not tired you can also check out the Selected Bibliography before we finally get to the Index.

The final thing that needs to be said is that this is but one volume in the For Kids series. There are over a dozen volumes that I know about for sure. The one's under "A" consist of "Africa for Kids," "American Folk Art for Kids," "The American Revolution for Kids," and "Archaeology for Kids." Those four titles along should give you a good idea of the scope of the series. So teachers might only use a couple of activities from this book, but they can do the same for units on Leonardo da Vinci, Lewis and Clark, the Civil Rights Movement, and know that Chicago Review Press will be adding volumes to this wonderful series for some time to come.
March 03, 2006

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