Customer Reviews

Earth Science

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Following years of producing excellent university-level texts, Tarbuck and Lutgens have prepared a fresh and robust high school text written to standards. Tasa's illustrations are prolific, current and well done. Geared for high school, this text is on par with Christopherson's Geosystems and Physical Geography texts used at the university level.

All 25 chapters in 7 Units (Earth's Materials, Sculpting Earth's Surface, Forces Within, Historical Geology, Oceanography, Meteorology and Astronomy) follow a consistent format: 1) CA Science Standards, 2) Discovery Channel Video Field Trip, 3) Chapter Preview, 4) Online web resources and 5) Inquiry-Activity for hands-on learning. Goals and objectives of each subsection of each chapter (88 in all) clearly lay out key concepts, vocabulary and reading strategy. Key concepts and new terms embedded in text are shown in bold. SI measuring units are used exclusively. The end of each chapter includes a sample laboratory, a Study Guide broken down by key concepts and vocabulary; Assessment and Understanding Concepts, Critical Thinking, Concepts in Action and Standardized Test Preparation.

The text has an added chapter 13A, California's Resources and Natural Hazards, to meet California Science Standards. Ancillary materials include: Test Bank CD, 22 x 28 cm transparencies covering the whole text, VHS & DVD Discovery Channel "Field Trips", a "GEODe: Earth Science CD" - reproducing most of the 800-page text. Excellent NSTA SciLinks and other web resources make the text web interactive.

Rocks are treated systematically using color, texture and composition. The treatment of soils is archaic and weak. Appendix I includes "World Soils" but only discusses 10 of the 13 soil orders. Clouds receive minimal treatment and readers should make use of GLOBE (www.globe.gov) protocols and learning activities. El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) omits any mention of the Southern Oscillation. Meteorology graphics are excellent. Climate only includes Köppen and omits Thornthwaite, Mather & Feddemas' Climatic Water Budget Analysis. Climate and discussion of water both omit evapotranspiration and soil water-holding capacity. The confluence of the Sacramento & San Joaquin Rives and San Francisco Bay is called a "delta" while it is actually an estuary. Astronomy is well treated in 4 chapters, however, Pluto is called "Planet X" when 2004 discoveries identify Sedna as the next planet beyond Pluto. Map scale gets one paragraph with no discussion of Representative Fraction (RF).

The section on Science Skills is very good including basic process skills, experimental methods, safety, reading and study skills, graphic organizers, math skills include scientific notation, data tables, histograms and circle and line graphs.

While many science texts constantly increase in thickness and content each year and instructors and student race to cover more and more material, the 800 pages here have a "just right" feel. When used with student-generated Cornell notes, AVID techniques and hands-on laboratories, this helps provide a solid foundation for an introductory course in Earth Science.

Future editions will greatly improve by alignment with other standards: AAAS Project 2061, GLOBE, Math, National Science Education Standards and TIMSS.

I needed this book to create lesson plans for a college teaching course, and when I recieved it in the mail it was the wrong book. It was spiral bound paperback, with an entirely differnt cover. A lot of the content was similar to the book that is pictured above, but many chapters were not present and the quality of the book was poor. As a result I am scrambling to buy this book to finish my assignments in time. DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK FROM THIS SELLER.

It took over a week to recieve and it wad wrong. I emailed the seller to return since amazon assures return policies. To this day no one has gotten back to me about how to return this item and get my money back.