High School Chemistry Textbook

In my last post I introduced you to the amazing work the Second and Seven Foundation is doing to promote literacy. We usually talk about high school chemistry textbooks and gifted education books here, but none of that matters if students lack basic literacy skills. That's why 2nd and 7 is Tackling Illiteracy.

Throughout each school year, 2nd and 7 visits schools and gives books to second grade students. In the 2008-2009 school year alone they provided their books to approximately 4,000 students in 53 schools in Central Ohio, as well as nearly 12,000 more children across the country. That's 16,000 second graders who received a brand new book of their own from 2nd and 7!

And it's not just any books they're giving out. 2nd and 7 has developed a series of age appropriate books for second graders. Right now the Foundation has three books available: The Hog Mollies and The Pickle Pie Party, The Hog Mollies and The Rocky Relay Race, and The Hog Mollies and the Zooming Zackle Zoit. Each book focuses on a new adventure of the Hog Mollies, Hoppy, Sprout, Harley and Duke, fun little characters that work together as a team to tackle challenges that they face. With humor, engaging storylines and beautiful, full color illustrations, children are drawn right into the story, never even realizing that they are improving their literacy skills with each word. Each of the three books is available in paperback or hard cover from Kendall Hunt Publishing. Click here to go to Kendall Hunt's Hog Mollies page and order yours today! All proceeds benefit the 2nd and 7 Foundation's efforts in Tackling Illiteracy. Once you see these books for yourself, you'll want to get one for every child in your life!

Don't forget to visit 2nd and 7's website and see how you can support their efforts!

You can also follow 2nd and 7 on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/2nd-7-Foundation/105340035060.
 

As a follow-up to the fun and learning Kendall Hunt Publishing employees were a part of on the inaugural National Lab Day, there’s something I really want to get off my chest. Yes, Kendall Hunt is an educational publishing company, we sell educational materials and solutions. Books for gifted students, high school chemistry textbooks, teacher edition textbooks, online learning solutions, and more…we make it, and yep, we want to sell it.

But as I saw my fellow employees participate in and react to their National Lab Day experiences, it made me feel really good. Because for us, it really is about the kids. It’s about them learning, and growing, and, eventually, making the world a better place. And we know we can influence that, we can help them along the way, we can make a difference for them. We’ll never be a giant monolithic publisher who sells more high school biology books that everyone else combined. But we don’t want to be that. We want to help teachers, real classroom teachers, from kindergarten through college, find the best solution for their students.

I think it’s just that we care about the kids, we believe in what we do, and we hope to make a difference. It’s what keeps each of us going every day. As loyal readers, I just thought you might like to know what drives us.

Getting Ready -- Prepares individuals for the teacher job search by making the most of the student teaching experience.  It includes insider advise on multiple topics, 100 things employers will ask about you, and maintaining a professional web presence.

Getting There -- Teaches the essential tools of the teacher job search including résumés, cover letters, interview portfolios, and tips on where to find jobs.

Getting Hired -- Provides strategic interview responses, knowledge of various interview settings, common interview questions and sure-fire tips to make you stand out above the rest with a knock'em dead interview.

Each book comes with individual access to the Getting Hired Companion Website, which contains a plethora of resources, including: ePlanner Activities: Templates for résumé/letter writing, philosophy statements, common interview questions and topics, and success planning.

Interview Portfolio: Build an Interview Portfolio that can easily become an ePortfolio showcasing standards-based teaching abilities, as well as a tremendous interview preparation tool. The 10 Interview Portfolio templates comprise a powerful self-promotion and interview success tool.

Videos: Watch sample interviews for all levels of instruction, listen in as employers give job seeking advice, and key interview questions and topics.

This book can be used for student teaching courses through college or universities, or to support a job search for an individual in the education field. So if you can't decide what to get your son or daughter who is beginning their student teaching, the student who has helped you create lesson plans for your gifted and talented students for the past three months, or the friend who will be student teaching in the Fall, check out Getting Hired on the Kendall Hunt Publishing website: http://www.kendallhunt.com/gettinghired. 

Volunteers, university students, scientists, engineers, other STEM professionals and, more broadly, members of the community are working together with educators and students to bring discovery-based science experiences to students in grades K-12."

There will be a nationwide celebration of this in early May with activities across the country. If you click on the "Projects" tab, you'll find that projects are posted from literally one end of the country to the other: Alaska to Florida, and California to Virginia. What a great way to encourage inquiry based science and the use of elementary school science textbooks, middle and high school chemistry and physics textbooks that use that learning model!

Kendall Hunt supports National Lab Day, so don't forget to check out all our inquiry based science programs! I'll keep you posted on what's coming up in the May celebration!
 

Kendall Hunt has some really good workshops coming up at NSTA National Convention at Philadelphia in March.  If you are headed there, make sure to check these out:

Well, Kendall Hunt Publishing is for sure! And we’re taking some of our top authors, including Kelly Deters, author of Kendall Hunt Chemistry! So if you want to learn more about inquiry based science, any of our high school science textbooks and programs, or perhaps you’re interesting in discussing science textbook publishing with one of our reps, stop by and see us at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, March 18-21. And find out all about the special events planned by checking our convention schedule here.

I thought I'd share a little more information on our outstanding Professional Development department. They have recently become an affiliate of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills is the leading advocacy organization focused on infusing 21st century skills into education.  The organization brings together the business community, education leaders, and policy makers to define a powerful vision for 21st century education to ensure every child's success as citizens and workers in the 21st century by providing tools and resources to help facilitate and drive change.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills Professional Development Affiliate Program equips individuals and organizations with resources and assistance in integrating 21st century skills into their professional development practice.
Kendall Hunt is a professional development affiliate of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills which supports the integration of 21st century skills into all aspects of teaching and learning.

Kendall Hunt's Professional Development experts can help with training and support for any of our programs, including our talented and gifted resources, and our science programs, from elementary school science textbooks, through our high school chemistry and physics programs. Check out what they can offer you!

Okay, I know I’m no Spring chicken, and the way they taught science when I was in high school is a far cry from the way kids learn inquiry based science today. And I also know that anything beyond my high school chemistry textbook was too much for my little pea brain. I never made it to, let alone through, physics. Waaaaay too much math (another area of weakness for me) I thought.

So imagine my surprise when someone asked me to post a sample chapter from our Physics That Works program. I opened the file and was immediately drawn in by the fun, color picture of an old-fashioned, wind-up tin toy rocket, driven by a character who bore a striking resemblance to George Jetson! So, I thought, “Okay, I’ll read the first page, even if it IS physics.” (BTW, no offense to anyone who loves, teaches or does physics, I only wish I were smart enough to join you!) Alright, so this chapter is going to teach me about toys in motion while I construct and test a toy called a Creepy Crawly?? Whoa, cool!! Read a little farther…I’m going to do a feasibility study for the toy. Hmmm…pretty soon I’m totally sucked in. The chapter is 23 pages long. I’ve made it to page 10 so far (I do actually have to work during the day, sort of limits my “fun” time), and I get it!! I’m reading a high school physics textbook!  At least one chapter. But it’s all making sense to me so far.

I’ll keep reading, and give you an update next week. In the meantime, check out the chapter yourself. Go to http://www.kendallhunt.com/ptw and click the link called View a Sample Chapter under the Additional Information heading.

Have you been reading Susan Rusts’ posts here? She’s been taking us through the essential features of inquiry based science one step at a time. I always thought I knew what inquiry based science was - you know, hands-on, engaging, get students to actually “do” science. But Susan’s posts really describe the nitty gritty of what’s makes science truly inquiry based. 

Step by step it’s become clearer to me how each of these features, when incorporated in a high school chemistry textbook or in elementary school science textbooks can help students develop a real understanding of science. What could be more important in science class than that? I’ll be awaiting the next feature, Susan!

Here at Kendall Hunt Publishing we talk about inquiry based science a lot. But even I didn’t realize how cool some of our inquiry based science programs are until I was going through a couple of them looking for some specific information the other day. For instance, our Forensic Science for High School program isn’t typical of high school science textbooks. It not only teaches elements of chemistry, physics, math, technology, life science and social studies, making it truly multidisciplinary, it has a great website with really engaging virtual labs letting students engage in the same types of activities they can see on the popular crime scene investigation shows. I would have LOVED a high school science textbook/program like this when I was in school!
 

Then I looked through Kendall Hunt Chemistry, again, not your typical high school chemistry textbook. Now, to be honest, I barely passed chemistry, and we had open book, open note tests! It wasn’t for lack of intelligence (at least I don’t think it was!), but is was just…so…DULL. I was completely uninterested in it. But much of how we learned was from the book, and when we were in the lab, the experiments were rarely about anything that had any application to my life at that point. But when I looked at KH Chemistry, one of the first things I saw was the Alka Seltzer™ Cannon. What? A cannon? In Chemistry class? AAAAWESOME! ---was all I could think (yes, my thoughts often sound like those of a 14 year-old boy). I want to do it. In the process I’ll apparently learn about acids and bases. All I need is an empty film canister, water, and an Alka Seltzer™. Assuming I don’t put my eye out (always wear eye protection, kids!), I’ll let you know how it goes when I try it this weekend!

Okay, so that’s pretty bad paraphrasing of The Bard, but my point is, what do you think of e-books anyway? Certainly the electronic book reader a certain online book vendor has taken off, but that’s more in the trade book market. I like the idea of going on vacation and taking one little rectangular, electronic thing instead of a stack of books. But what about when it comes to textbooks for elementary school, or high school science textbooks?

My son’s fourth grade math book is available online. They sent home the access instructions this week. Kind of a cool idea, especially with a fourth grader who forgets to close the freezer, feed the dog, and take his shoes upstairs (and that’s just the first five minutes after dinner!). He can forget his book at school, but still get his homework done.

I can see where having your high school chemistry textbook online would be a great option to lugging it home. Is there a certain level for which it works best? Maybe education textbook publishers should be making all elementary education books available in e-book format. Or perhaps it’s more appropriate for high school science textbooks, and middle school math. I don’t know. What do you think?
 

In previous posts regarding developing a high school science textbook at Kendall Hunt Publishing Company, I've touched on acquisition, planning, manuscript development and copy-editing, cover design and interior design.

I was going to discuss composition at this stage; however, I want to touch on a very important step having to do with manuscript and art package development: permissions! Whether it’s a high school chemistry textbook or a primary school textbook, we use the same permissions process.

Copyright Law

While writing and developing art packages, our K-12 authors have to be aware of the rules of permissions regarding copyright laws. KH has a permissions department that helps our authors understand the copyright laws and helps them with these needs. Basically, if they are utilizing any material beyond what they are creating, they need to request permission for the borrowed materials.

Copyright protection extends to the authors of all original works including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic and certain other intellectual material. The law of copyright gives the owner the sole and exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work in any form and to authorize others to do so.

The following chart provides a quick reference to copyright duration.

Next time I’ll talk about “fair use” and “public domain.” You’ll be a permissions guru before you know it!

It’s almost that time of year, the time we all look longingly forward to in the summer.  No, not Christmas, the start of school!  Kids back on a schedule and in a routine, that’s always a good thing, right?  My son seems ready for fourth grade.  Yesterday I came home to find a note on my desk, it said, “Mom, can you please get me a high school biology textbook, a high school chemistry textbook, and any other high school science textbooks you have at your company?  Thank you.” 

When he came in from outside I asked him why he needed them.  “Well,” he said, “at football camp this week they told us about one of the seniors from last year who made the Academic All American team.  They said he’s really good in science so I thought if I got ahead in science then I’ll be able to make the Academic All American team too.”  You have to love the innocence of kids, it never occurred to him that he will have to make the football team first.  And who am I to discourage?  I love that he wants high school science textbooks in fourth grade.  But I think we’ll just go to the bookstore this weekend and find something closer to the level of elementary school science textbooks.  It’s a start!

You can preview most of our K12 textbooks at Kendall Hunt Publishing Company's website.

In the previous article, I spoke about the beginning stages of creating a high school science textbook: acquisition and planning, as well as the development of the manuscript and art package. In this article, I'll introduce the design process that we, as an educational publishing company, use.

Around the same time that the copy-editing is being done, we coordinate with a designer to develop the cover image/design. When selecting a cover image for a high school biology textbook, high school chemistry textbook, or any of our textbooks, we look for a good balance of gender and ethnicity in an photos of people that we use. We also consider age-appropriateness for grade-level, whether it’s a primary school textbook vs. secondary school textbooks and whether it’s a product targeted to a specific ability, such as a curriculum for high ability learners.

The cover image needs to be strong and eye-catching and express the concept that we are trying to project for our target market. We want to draw the student into the content. The text/logo-type needs to be nicely balanced and eye-catching as well. We usually request 3-4 choices and may go through several "proofs" to complete the front/spine/back panels of the cover. The text on the back cover is another tool used to interest and draw students into the content. The saying, "you can't judge a book by its cover" is certainly true, however, we need to show something dynamic in order to have potential customers review our products in the first place!

This weekend I was speaking with a friend of mine who is a high school science teacher and we were talking about high school science textbooks. She was bemoaning the lack of teacher resources in the high school biology textbook her school uses. Sure, she has the teacher edition textbooks that go with the program, but she’s looking for something more. At the private school where she teaches, they’ve been using the program for a number of years and are hoping to change soon. 

She had no idea the inquiry based science resources that are available online now. When I told her about the virtual autopsies that are available with our Forensic Science for High School program, she was so excited. That got me thinking, are you happy with the resources that school textbook publishers are providing for you as teachers? Does your high school physics textbook give you online resources for experiments & interactive learning exercises? Is your high school chemistry textbook robust enough to keep your students engaged? I’d love to have a conversation about this!