The Utah State Office of Education has posted their open science textbooks for grades 7 – 12 for the coming school year. Here are some of the highlights:
- Based on the CK-12 Foundation‘s open science textbooks
- Customized specifically for Utah students by Utah teachers
- Each book’s Table of Contents is the Utah Science Core Standards
- Professionally designed
- Print copies available from Amazon’s CreateSpace for an average cost of $5 per book (for schools that need a print option)
And here are the links to the free and open PDF versions of the books:
and the print versions available from CreateSpace:
- 7th Integrated Science –https://www.createspace.com/4215253
- 8th Integrated Science – https://www.createspace.com/4215270
- Earth Science – https://www.createspace.com/4241278
- Biology – https://www.createspace.com/4241344
- Chemistry – https://www.createspace.com/4241213
- Physics – https://www.createspace.com/4241314
Seeing the USOE launch the initiative statewide for this coming fall is the extremely gratifying culmination of years of collaborative work and research between the USOE, the Nebo school district, BYU, and Lumen. My research team (the Open Education Group) are currently finalizing an article analyzing data from last year’s expanded pilot, which shows statistically significant gains in student performance on the state’s end of year standardized tests for students using the $5 books.
Later this week, or perhaps early next, I’ll publish our process guide for creating and adopting open science textbooks statewide. We’ve learned many important lessons along the way…