This is my month to review science encyclopedias. Professionals and college level buyers will want to take a look at my review of KR OnDisc Academic Press Encyclopedia of the Physical Sciences and Technology. If you have pre‐collegiate kids, are involved in science education, or just want to futz around for an evening now and then, then read this one. The writing in Encyclopedia of Science seems targeted at middle school through junior high school reading levels. So I went and got my 12 year old daughter and asked her what she was studying in science class. She answered proteins.
We located proteins in two ways. First we clicked on the life sciences section in the main screen. That gave us a bunch of options ‐ each a hyperlink graphic with a bit of explanatory text. We guessed we wanted Cells and Molecules and got three more options, again graphics and text. We guessed Biological Molecules and got lucky ‐ an audio file read us a short description of biological molecules, including proteins. On the side of the text display of what was being read was a “Find out More” section with Proteins among the listings. We went there. My daughter could understand everything. Difficult words (concepts) are highlighted in red. These hyperlink to a glossary description with further links to related articles.
The article was informative and taught her a few things she had not known. More important, she thought the software was cool and she might actually use it without me sitting alongside. That’s a strong argument in favor of buying it.
A much easier way to find proteins was using the CD’s search engine. Here we could search by two terms linked with AND or use canned search options such as an index of all articles or selected indexes of multimedia files (for example, video clips or animations.) We found proteins with no problem.
I should clarify, before going on, I kind of like the first path to proteins. There is a lot in the K‐12 science education literature about teaching concepts not just memorizing. The first path takes you though building block concepts to the detail which got you started. Not a bad way for a kid playing around alone to learn.
The animations are nice and should be a help to any parents who have to supplement what their child is learning at school. I remember when we worked on adding fractions via common denominators. I viewed the animation on this one. It would have helped me a lot to have this on my machine a year ago. The animation even has an audio file to drive the point home.
I then looked at the descriptions of statistics. While not at the level of a cookbook, the descriptions are clear and accurate and certainly sufficient for recalling basic level stuff I learned in college. So everyone can find things useful on the disc.
There is, of course, some of the typical multimedia razzle‐dazzle. For example, “Virtual Molecule” gives you some basic information, a hop to a detailed article, but mostly the ability to see the atoms of a molecule color coded. Clicking on arrows lets you spin the little guy around. Cute! Videos are included as well.
A nice touch is the inclusion of a link to a web page with an on‐line science magazine (www.dkonline.com/science, username and password SCIENTIST). For kids enjoying science, there is a nice range of material and hands‐on stuff to while away a few hours.
The publisher tells us this CD features over 1,000 new articles, nearly a million words of text, and scores of new screens. If you buy it, you also get a free a copy of Science Facts, a 160‐page full‐color DK Pockets reference book ($6.95 value) that won a Parents Choice 1995 Reference Award.
There are some problems with this CD ‐ after all, you get what you pay for and this one is inexpensive. First, it is a system hog. I have 32 MB of RAM and a couple of video cards and it still runs slow. It seems that it runs off and on the CD a lot. Second, it multitasks very poorly, even under Windows 95. Third, even though the publisher touts the interface as “a stunning new 3D interface [that] puts the entire world of science at your fingertips,” it took me a while to figure it out. It was bad enough I even had to search for help, which turned out to be a box with a “?” in it. My rule of thumb is if you have to open a manual or read help to do basic stuff in a program there are problems. This one has some problems; but they are minor. Once you find help, everything is explained.
The software runs on multimedia PCS (486 and above) and MACs.
I like this one for what it does for school kids and idle curiosity as much as I like KR’s Encyclopedia for work. I highly recommend the Eyewitness Science Encyclopedia for parents, pre‐collegiate schools, and for universities with science education programs.
