The "Story of Science" series by Joy Hakim tells the history of science with wit, narrative depth and research, all vetted by specialists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The series, which has drawn acclaim, chronicles not only great discoveries but also the scientists who made them.
"These books humanize science," Pavlekovich said.
"We teach students this equation and this theory or this topic and that idea, but we never discuss the scientist behind it or how that scientist made the discovery," he said. "It helps students to understand how they struggled and overcame great obstacles to do what they did."
That's lovely. But does it work?
The answer is: nobody knows. That's because in education they don't test their new products before putting them on the market. The publishers didn't set-up a controlled experiment in which they tested this brave new textbook series with a group of students and a competent teacher to see if the students learned as much or more than a typical science textbook. There's a name for this conduct: educational malpractice.
Here's the testing the publishers did:
Scientists and educators say that there are many ways to teach science but that Hakim's approach makes sense.
Hakim said MIT scientists, including senior research scientist emeritus Edwin Taylor, checked each chapter of the Einstein book.
That's nice, but does it work?
Nobody knows and nobody cares.