Have you heard of the book “Once We All Had Gills: Growing Up Evolutionist in an Evolving World
Here’s a summary:
In this book, Rudolf A. Raff reaches out to the scientifically queasy, using his life story and his growth as a scientist to illustrate why science matters, especially at a time when many Americans are both suspicious of science and hostile to scientific ways of thinking. Noting that science has too often been the object of controversy in school curriculums and debates on public policy issues ranging from energy and conservation to stem-cell research and climate change, Raff argues that when the public is confused or ill-informed, these issues tend to be decided on religious, economic, and political grounds that disregard the realities of the natural world. Speaking up for science and scientific literacy, Raff tells how and why he became an evolutionary biologist and describes some of the vibrant and living science of evolution. Once We All Had Gills is also the story of evolution writ large: its history, how it is studied, what it means, and why it has become a useful target in a cultural war against rational thought and the idea of a secular, religiously tolerant nation.
Courtesy of the National Center for Science Education, you can have a FREE CHAPTER of this interesting book!
exemplify the results of an Interent search for “realistic dinosaur.” Yes, they are realistic but they are not so much revised. Among the highest quality but maybe not very toy-like are the Schleich models. The 
and other Schleich dinos such as the 
and the 
are all very “real” looking but I don’t see much in there that is taking into account ALL of the more recent revisions. 
. Little kids love 
, and really, they hardly pay any attention to detail as long as they are sticking them on as many inconvenient places as possible. I don’t see any feathers in the 
, but there are brilliant colors and the details are glossed enough that they might suffice, plus they are cheap. The 
is the scariest one of all that I’ve seen, so that’s good. And if you have a spare few hundred bucks, you might as well go for the 
because it is a robot!
. Inspiring. 
is highly ranked on Amazon for little kids (4 years old) and I’ve heard people rave about the various 
sets. The chemistry set that probably represents best the one many of us had when we were kids and that is currently highly ranked may be the 
or the 
, depending on how much money you want to spend. 
, or one can get a kit with a specific critter to dissect that comes with some tools such as the 
. Generally, materials from Carolina or Wards are going to be higher quality than randomly chosen items off the internet. 
that introduces you to some of the basic techniques, and then you go and find the parts you need around the house and at your local stores, although you might not find 
. Having said that, it is a good idea to get a hardness set of minerals (e.g. 
). But, “rock hounding” and “geology” are not the same thing. Someone interested in collecting rocks and minerals should visit rock shops and shows, talk to people there, and learn from them where your local collecting areas might be and learn the ropes from the people you meet along the way. If geology, no specifically rock collecting, is what you are into, try finding good books and geological monographs for areas you can get to and visit those areas with the books and the maps that come with them (a good book on the geology of an area will have good maps, or it is not a good book on the geology of an area!). A great if sometimes difficult to use resource is the roadside geology guides often put together for geology conferences or courses. These are travel routes that take several hours at most, often several in one document, that bring you to individual road cuts or other sites and explain, often in technical terms, what you are looking at there. Try Googling “geology road guide” and then a state or region name. You’ll find stuff.