700 Science Experiments for Everyone

At the end of World War II, the newly formed United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), noting the shortage of textbooks and teaching materials throughout much of the world, commissioned a book that would allow teachers to devise laboratory experiments with the most common of materials--candles, balls of paper, saucers, odd strands of twine. UNESCO's report grew into this fine and highly useful collection of experiments in the biological, geological, and atmospheric sciences. The experiments illustrate relatively simple facts--how static electricity can be concentrated, how liquids change to gases, how water is purified by passing through charcoal--with only minimal interpretation. It is therefore best used as a companion to a school primer or science encyclopedia. Now revised and updated, 700 Science Experiments for Everyone retains its emphasis on readily available materials, making this an especially useful resource for home-schoolers and for anyone with an urge to learn firsthand how the physical world works. --Gregory McNamee