Big Picture Science provides: Learning materials for Montessori teachers Elementary and middle school level materials Help with WHAT to teach Current science information and resources A place to take your questions about science teaching Priscilla Spears, Ph.D. owns Big Picture Science and writes its materials. She has experience as a research scientist in microbiology and immunology. She has been a Montessori parent for 10 years and taught science lessons at lower and upper elementary levels, as well as assisting with elementary teacher training. Priscilla is now available to give botany and other science workshops for teachers. E-mail for more information. Priscilla is a consultant for In-Print for Children and has helped with the creation of a number of elementary science materials. See http://www.in-printforchildren.com/ for more information What's New at Big Picture Science New book on the diversity of life Kingdoms of Life Connected: A Teacher’s Guide to the Tree of Life is a 198-page book that helps teachers present the Tree-of-Life view of life’s diversity to elementary and middle school students. The content includes “Coming of the Kingdoms” lessons and learning activities for all kingdoms plus the viruses. There are listings of book resources and Internet sites for each kingdom. This book includes black and white photo cards for charts that show the Tree of Life. The charts themselves are described in the book, and the files for printing them are available for download below. Email Priscilla to learn about ordering the book. Tree of Life Charts are available for free. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. You may view the following files to use as a pattern to make your own charts. If you wish to have these charts printed, right click on the image and save the file to your computer, or simply open them directly. Copy the files to a memory stick or CD to transport them to a printing business that has a wide-format color printer. The cost of all five charts, printed in color and laminated, should be about $120. There are black and white photos that children can place on each of the colored rectangles. These photo cards are in the appendix of the book, Kingdoms of Life Connected. The photos are printed on card stock. They can be removed from the book and cut up for use on the charts. The text on the back of each photo tells where it belongs on the charts and has other information about the organism. A composite of all five charts shows how they fit together. This image is 38 inches X 71 inches when it is printed full size. The prokaryote chart is abbreviated for elementary children. The protist chart has the major lineages of eukaryotes. The fungus chart includes the newest phylum, Glomeromycota. The animal chart has major phyla. The plant chart shows major lineages. If you need further information or have questions, please email Priscilla. Botany Lessons CD This CD has four PowerPoint presentations for teacher education or individual teacher review. The presentations are: Phyla of the Plant Kingdom, Plant Form and Function, Flowering Plant Families, and the Amaryllis, an example for the elementary classroom. The CD includes a PowerPoint player and also has the files in the pdf format. $15 + $2 shipping. Email Priscilla to learn about ordering the CD. Botany Photocards, Set 2, Introduction to the Flowering Plant Families is available from Montessori Services (item EM403). It has 48 color photo cards, each of which is 4 ¼ X 5 ½. This set shows 14 families that represent the major lineages of angiosperms. Priscilla's new book on flowering plants is out! A Tour of the Flowering Plants: Based on the Classification System of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group shows a useful system of families and orders, as well as higher levels of classification. You can read about it and order it at: MBG Press. Order it at Amazon.com! Big Picture Science is shifting to wholesale. Now you can purchase Big Picture Science learning materials through Montessori Services (North America) and Montessori Downunder (New Zealand and Australia). If you need something that these two companies do not offer, feel free to contact Priscilla to make special arrangements. See the "Ordering" page for more informationa. Back issues of Big Picture Science Newsletter are now available online Selected back issues of Big Picture Science Newsletter from 1999-2002 are posted here as pdf files. Click here to reach them. These files can be downloaded and printed free of charge. Photocards for botany Photocard set 1, Phyla of the Plant Kingdom, has been revised. The second edition has more images and includes more reproductive structures. It includes a photo of Welwitschia, that hard-to-find gnetophyte. Also available: Flowers: Stamens and Pistils. This set of letter-sized images shows close-ups of 12 flowers and has text for lower and upper elementary students and background information for their teachers. New learning materials for introducing matter and atoms Priscilla has worked with InPrint for Children on several new charts and cards sets. You can see them at http://www.in-printforchildren.com/. They include a magnetic periodic table and cards that show everyday objects and the elements that compose them. There are also materials for learning the parts of an atom, element names and symbols, the difference between physical and chemical changes, and the classification of matter. Priscilla wrote the background information and lesson suggestions for teachers for each of the materials.