The Life of Mineraux is the first in a series of books I am working on. I plan to produce books that follow the seventh-grade science core curriculum, and if I still have time, I’ll also touch on the basics from eighth-grade.
Seventh-grade science is not strictly the study of Biology, but a view into many of the basic principles of science. But my degree is in biology, and therefore, that is where my love lies. The Life of Mineraux begins this study of Biology by discovering exactly what it takes to proclaim something as “Alive.”
I found that even middle school students struggle to determine the difference between 1. what is alive (or living), 2. what is dead (or was once alive), and 3. what is non-living when given pictures of various objects. The Life of Mineraux was written to define this memorably for the reader. We follow a girl named Halee, who is traveling to a newly discovered exoplanet to inventory and determine if there are any life forms on the planet.
Through a fun adventure on an incredibly weird exoplanet, learning is achieved, and a great deal of enjoyable reading has taken place.
The next book in the series is an adventure book that explores the structure of a cell.
Other ideas of upcoming books include:
Scientific use of the word “theory” vs. “hypothesis,
Structure of DNA and RNA and how they replicate,
Size comparison of a human cell, vs. a bacterium, vs. a virus,
The classification system – organization of all living things
Three ways of knowing: dogma, vs. science, vs. philosophy
The water, nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon cycles,
How stuff enters a cell: active transport, diffusion/osmosis, endocytosis
The power/skill of observation.
Any other ideas, please drop me a line. I am open to requests.
