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Space and Earth Science, third edition (2005)

Publisher: Bob Jones University Press Review last updated: 2009

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Targeting eighth graders, this text is titled Space and Earth Science purposely in that order to reflect the heavier weighting toward space topics.

The text begins with a Biblical Christian worldview orientation based on a fundamentalist biblical perspective including defense of a young earth that was created fully functional. God's role as Creator is a core element of the text, and the Bible is the arbiter to which the text turns when there is a seeming conflict between faith and science.

The next chapter teaches about the earth's motion, which serves as a connector to the immediately following chapters on the stars; the sun; the planets; asteroids, comets, and meteors; the moon; and space exploration. The next group of chapters deals with meteorology, atmosphere, water, and weather. Then the text shifts to earth science, with chapters on geology, minerals and ores, rocks and fossils, mountains and high hills, earthquakes and volcanoes, weathering and erosion, oceans and seas, glaciers, and groundwater systems.

The format is unusual. There are two student textbooks. Rather than separate activity manuals, pertinent activity pages are bound into the back of each volume of the text.

Activities include a mixture of what the text calls "applications" and "investigations." Applications are removable worksheets, each with a unique format, that review chapter content with diagrams to label, crosswords, charts to be completed, fill-in-the-blanks questions, and similar activities. Investigations are experiments that help develop lab skills as well as knowledge. These can be done at home, but they do require quite a bit of equipment and resources. (Kits for BJUP science courses are available from Home Training Tools and Science Labs-in-a-Box.) Lists of required materials are end of the second teacher's edition.

Textbooks are heavily illustrated in full-color. Chapter reviews include a summary of key points, terms students should know accompanied by the page number on which they appear, comprehension questions, and thought/discussion questions.

The teacher's edition also come in two volumes. They include reproductions of student pages with teaching notes, additional activities, and answers to text questions printed in the margins. Activity pages have answers overprinted in red.

The homeschool kit includes both student and teacher books plus a test booklet and test answer key.

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