Reading Nature: Engaging Biology Students with Evidence from the Living World

This book is a unique supplemental resource that reflects the true endeavor of science, with its ingenious experiments, frustrating dead ends, and incredible finds that eventually contribute to our understanding of living things. Reading Nature provides a window into science ideas and practices by drawing on and adapting peer-reviewed articles from scientific journals. Each evidence-based text ties into one of five disciplinary core ideas-from molecules to organisms, ecosystems, heredity, biological evolution, and human impacts on Earth systems. The authors extensively adapted the source material in order for students to grapple with ideas and data in authentic but developmentally appropriate ways. They’ve heightened the roles of people and narrative and provided context and relevant data for the investigations. They’ve also provided supplementary teacher questions and prompts. The result is a resource that is both practical and flexible. You can use it as an inquiry activity at the beginning of a unit, an introduction to an investigation, or a way to pull ideas together before a summative assessment. No matter how you use it, Reading Nature will motivate your students to look at the living world and ask not only Why? but also How do we know?