Lyrical Life Science and Lyrical Earth Science - rigorous and humorous

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Rigorous

Our rigor comes from the content of the lyrics, which is really summarized information about each scientific subject. For instance, you'll be singing "Oh Bacteria" instead of "Oh Suzanna" and "Cold blooded Vertebrates" instead of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." Several years ago, teacher Doug Eldon was having his sixth grade students work from a big, beautiful, new, thickly illustrated textbook. The problem was too many students couldn't remember or understand what they had just read, even though they used the materials with hands-on activities. Students were overwhelmed by the amount of information. So Doug started whistling "Dixie" one day in the shower and soon came lyrics all about the scientific method. Eventually he had a nine verse song which he offered to those who were having difficulty learning, and to make a long story short, they understood and remembered the information, as demonstrated by the improved test scores (and their confident smiles).

Lyrical Life Science and Lyrical Earth Science are organized and systematic presentations of concepts, vocabulary, and definitions. They will give you a framework and foundation on which to build your scientific knowledge.

Songs
The lyrics are full of foundational scientific information that has been summarized and condensed.

Text
The text describes, amplifies and explains the lyrics, sort of like reconstituting what was condensed into song. You also will find lots of line drawings (about 200 per text), and sheet music, including guitar chords, so you can conduct your own science sing-a-longs at home, in school, or even around the campfire.

Workbooks
Each song has 3 worksheets (a few have two). The first page is a fill-in-the-blank lyric sheet. The second page contains true/false, matching, and short answer questions. The third has essays with one digging deeper question. And don't worry, all answers are in the key at the back of the book.

Humorous

We mentioned whistling "Dixie"... Well, when it came time to produce the songs and make the music, there was only one person to turn to: Bobby Horton. In fact, maybe you've already heard his "Dixie" in the renowned Public Broadcasting Ken Burns' Civil War series - or his other works in the historical television documentaries of Baseball, Lewis and Clark, and THomas Jefferson. Bobby is a musical archivist: he researches and rescues old American songs from oblivion. If you're touring Civil War battlefields, you'll find his tapes/CDs in the National Park gift shops (or you can call him at 205-967-6426).

In Lyrical Life Science and Lyrical Earth Science, Bobby goes all-out to make you smile and laugh as you're learning serious scientific concepts. He's a true one-man-band: he plays almost every instrument - guitars, banjos, fiddles, trumpet, drums, etc. - as well as sings and harmonizes, and engineers the recordings. He delights in playing different styles of music too: folk, swing, jazz, classical, cowboy lullabies, military marches, even Mexican mariachi! No rock or pop, as the tunes themselves are old enough to be in the public domain.