Health Science Projects About Anatomy and Physiology

Children's Literature

Five chapters explore various aspects of the human body—Skin, Skeleton, and Joints; Muscles; Circulation and Respiration; Digestive and Excretory systems; and the Nervous and Endocrine systems. Each section begins with several pages of discussion followed by four to eight experiments that make the young scientist think, as each ends with a series of open-ended questions that are not quickly answered on the following page. The experiments are age appropriate, mostly easy to set up, and suggest enough further thinking that some might even make good science fair projects. The author defines in the opening pages what a good science fair project is and suggests in a bibliography and related web sites further directions a young scientist might follow. Where appropriate, minimal line drawings indicate a process or label an area, but this is a very print-dependent resource and may be daunting to less able readers. Pair this with Laurence Pringle's series on the senses by Benchmark, books that further help readers understand a particular sense through full color illustrations but few experiments and no special science fair directions. Highly useful as a teacher resource as well as a reference for school science fair projects. Part of the "The Science Project" series. 2001, Enslow, $20.95. Ages 10 to 14. Reviewer: Susan Hepler