THIS BOOK'S EVOLUTION
This content of this book is the work of three individuals - Bryan Bunch, Mary C. Hicks,
and me (Keith Wilhelmi). Bryan has and Mary had considerable science writing experience, including numerous published materials. They co-authored the textbook on which this book is based - Globe Life Science. Mary and I were middle school science teachers. This is the first book that I have co-authored, but I devoted much of my long teaching career to the production of activities for middle school students. [For details regarding a few of these, see the Teachers-Pay-Teachers (TPT) website.]
As a means for my students to teach themselves most of the basic content, and to facilitate my efforts to help students develop good outlining skills, I used Globe Life Science for over thirty years. I felt that, if updated, it could still be a good fit for many teachers.
After I retired in May, 2020, I contacted Bryan, the senior author, and proposed that we work on a new edition of Globe Life Science. He was supportive of the idea, but warned me that it might be months before he would be assigned the rights to the book. Upon request, publishers traditionally return the rights to the author (once a book is out of print). Bryan also pointed out that he was involved in a writing project or two, so this would primarily be "on me," but with his support. In a few months, Bryan's persistence paid off and he obtained the rights. We both believe that Mary, who passed away some years ago, would be pleased with the new book.
"Re-creating" the book meant starting from a hard copy, not from a digital version of the original. Beginning in April, 2021, I re-typed and updated the 1996 edition of the Globe Life Science book, as well as the teacher's guide. I also added three lessons and an additional careers page. While there is a great deal of updated information, a good portion of the original book remains.
After completing the typing and writing, I scanned in all of the artwork, and added (or resized) the labels of some of the images. To avoid seeking permission from many photographers, I decided that none of the original photos would be used. As can be seen on the Photo Credits page (at the end of the glossary), for a few of the new photos I obtained permission from sources like the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health. Most of the photos, however, I purchased from two companies (DepositPhotos and Dreamstime); these businesses offer photos that are in the public domain.
The final stages of producing and selling Discovering Life Science included the following:
1) creating this (WIX) website (including hiring Cody of Intercityweb.com to improve the site and link the purchase buttons to Amazon);
2) hiring Tara of teaberrycreative.com to properly configure (and greatly improve) my original plan for the book's cover;
3) combining the book's pages (using Adobe), and putting the combined file of the book on Amazon KDP;
4) following the WIX steps for Search Engine Optimization.
Of course, I believe that many life science teachers would love this book, but I am not asserting that it is a good fit for everyone. For example, evolution and climate change are treated as facts, not "possible explanations." Please see the sample lessons under the CONTENT option.
I take full responsibility for the accuracy of this book's content, and I sincerely welcome feedback.