Experiments That Explore Acid Rain

School Library Journal

Gr 6-9-- Two seriously flawed efforts. Despite the titles, these books provide demonstrations -- not experiments --and their attempts to teach the scientific method fail. Rewording the prediction/inference portion to state the hypothesis will only confuse young readers. In Acid Rain , the suggested logging of results is meaningless; ``Water vapor seemed to escape from plants,'' is not an appropriate scientific observation. Plants grown in water will not wither and shrivel up as stated. Why use poisonous ammonium hydroxide in testing acids and bases when soap will do? In Recycling , an eight-month project involving digging a five - foot square in the backyard (without suggesting adult consent) is outlined when the same principles can be achieved in a jar. The depiction of the carbon cycle shows carbon going to but not from the atmosphere, the nitrogen cycle has an error, and the oxygen cycle isn't illustrated. The black-and-white photographs in both volumes are adequate and the charts for recording results clear; background information, although well written, is brief. Skip these and use 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth (G. K. Hall, 1990). Miller and Berry's Acid Rain (Messner, 1986) and Hadingham's Garbage! Where It Comes From, Where It Goes (S . & S . , 1990) are good activity books and cover the basics in greater depth and better detail. --Meryl Silverstein, American Museum of Natural History, New York City