Life Science Quest for Middle Grades

This inexpensive resource book offers a wealth of terrific life science labs that easily correlate with any life science text, and introduces middle schoolers to lab equipment. It is organized into eight chapters, covering cells, DNA, heredity, simple organisms, the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, ecosystems, and ecosystem cycles and biomes. Each chapter includes information, a related science lab activity, and a review worksheet. The information is succinctly presented, often with diagrams, charts, and bulleted lists. The lab activities are excellent, and you might be familiar with some of the old life science standbys. In the chapter on cells, three pages are devoted to explaining discoveries related to cells, the parts of a microscope, the main parts of a cell, and the differences between plant and animal cells. Several labs follow, including one where you make microscope slides with onion tissue and cells from a cheek swab and compare the cells, make a cell model using gelatin and a variety of other items, and demonstrate the process of osmosis doing a lab with a bag of scented gelatin in a bath of warm water and iodine. Now, not all chapters are that involved many of them are much shorter, with fewer activities. Teacher resource pages are found at the end of both units in the book, and these include enrichment activities and an answer key. While you will need iodine, slides and cover slips, a microscope, and a magnifying glass for the labs, all other equipment seems to be readily available household items. 94 pages, reproducible. Jess