Why are water droplets round?

Why is your voice in the tape recorder different from your usual voice?

Why do you feel itchy after being bitten by mosquitoes?

……

As an adult, have you been caught in these problems? Do you want to know the answer?

I think! So I immediately went to the book to find the answer (want to know the answer? I will announce it later).

Yes, this is a set of popular science books to answer these questions, just like "100,000 Why" we read when we were young. This set of books is a popular science reading for teenagers. It takes 3 minutes to learn math and physics every day, and it is written by representative of Japan Science Education Support Center, Rongji Komori. This book is popular in the form of telling a story every day for one year.

Typical Japanese style

After reading this set of books, I can't help but admire. It is really a strong Japanese style. As a Japanese translator who has worked in a Japanese company for more than ten years, I am really familiar with this style of Japanese.

They are good at simplifying complex things and formatting simple things. Therefore, the book "Learn Mathematics and Physics in 3 Minutes Every Day" has a unified form, and one page is a why and a knowledge point. And at the beginning of the book, a page of "Instructions for the Use of the Book" is specially set up, and the format and design ideas of each page are clearly written-very logical and logical scientific thinking, just like any Japanese company will standardize the process of doing things from the beginning.

In addition, the author Rong Zhi Komori also introduced the corresponding relationship between the contents of the book and the knowledge points taught by the school. Therefore, this set of books is an expanded reading besides the science textbooks for Japanese primary and secondary school students. Judging from the abscissa and ordinate, what grade each knowledge point corresponds to, what discipline it corresponds to, and the knowledge block in the discipline, it is really done with great care.

Through this map, we can see the context of the book at a glance, and we can also fully understand the contents of science subjects from primary school to middle school in Japan.

Combined with the context diagram of this knowledge point, let's look at the story on the inside page. On each page, there are labels corresponding to the knowledge points in the context diagram; There are words combined with pictures and texts to explain every knowledge point clearly and vividly; Have the main points and summarize the core content into one sentence; There is a quiz, don't forget to let the children review what they have seen.

Even the author has set a reading date on every inner page, just like keeping a notebook, so that children can record their reading time. Just think, is it inexplicably stupid?

Finally, there are standard answers to the quiz on every printed page on the next page. This kind of game-like mind setting is also very clever, which not only keeps suspense, but also saves you the trouble of looking through books for answers (sometimes I hate that some books deliberately set a puzzle and then put the answer in a particularly hidden place, so you can't find it).

Really Japanese.

I have to say that it is still very advantageous to make science popularization so detailed. On the one hand, the question of what is the opening title, combined with common phenomena in daily life, will attract curious children, who have a natural thirst for knowledge about why; On the other hand, each knowledge point is short and illustrated, which is convenient for children to understand and remember, and helps to digest and absorb knowledge, which is also the purpose and significance of popular science books.

If parents really like the title of this book, "Learn Mathematics and Physics in 3 minutes every day", and only spend 3 minutes every day to show their children a page, it will be more beautiful and children will not feel that learning is a burden. However, this is of course a great test for parents. After all, it's no small thing to persist for a year.

Contrast the domestic science curriculum with the brick and jade.

As mentioned above, after reading the context map in the book, I got to know the contents of Japanese science subjects from primary school to middle school, which makes me wonder that all primary schools in China are learning this content now. Through simple interviews with my second-grade son and friends, as well as online inquiries, I learned that during primary school, children had a "science" class, which was mainly composed of four parts.

These four parts are:

material science

life sciences

Earth and Cosmic Science

Technology and engineering

The teaching setup is as follows:

It seems that the teaching content of science in Japanese primary schools is somewhat different, and there are also similarities. It would be interesting to know more about it, but I won't start here because I'm just a little ignorant. I hope to attract interested professional friends to compare the advantages and disadvantages of science education in primary schools between China and Japan.

As a book, it can inspire people to reflect on similar books and teaching phenomena in China, which is also a function of its existence.

Horizontal comparison of Newton Jr. Science Museum

But regardless of the teaching setup, at least an interesting and knowledgeable popular science book written with official teaching content, such as "Learn Mathematics and Physics in 3 Minutes a Day", is really not well-known in China. Most of the popular science books that children read now are imported from abroad, and there seems to be nothing good in China except "100,000 Why".

It happens that my family has a popular science picture book "Little Newton Science Museum" in Taiwan Province Province.

These two sets of books are popular science books, but there are still some differences.

1, system

Learn Mathematics and Physics in 3 Minutes a Day, although there is a systematic context at the beginning, the themes in the book are scattered, sorted by time, and there is no logic (at least I have not found a logical law), interspersed in 366 pages and divided into 4 volumes.

There are 30 volumes in Little Newton Science Museum, which are divided into five series: Amazing Nature, Secrets of the Universe, Good Life, Mammals and Food on the Table. Each series is divided into several articles, and each book tells a content, which is fully explained and extended around the theme. This set of books is more systematic.

2, graphic content

Little Newton Science Museum is a large-format illustration, with more or less words on each page, flexible typesetting and large font. The typesetting of "Learn Mathematics and Physics in 3 minutes every day" is very solid and unified, with dense characters and small fonts. From the perspective of appreciation, the former is easier to read, and the latter will have a certain sense of oppression, especially for children.

However, learning math and physics for three minutes every day also has its advantages. Small size, easy to carry, but large amount of information, because concise and short, can accommodate more knowledge. This is actually very suitable for the fragmented reading habits of modern people.

So I feel that these two sets of popular science books have different emphasis on people. Little Newton Science Museum is more suitable for children in grades 1-6, while studying math and physics for 3 minutes every day is more suitable for children above grade 4, even adult friends. These two sets of books are both systematic and comprehensive, and I think they are both basic funds.

We humans are born with a thirst for knowledge to explore nature. Although the scientific knowledge we know now may only be as bright as a street lamp at night, more unknowns are like endless darkness. However, it is the hope of human development and our obligation as parents to pass on our known knowledge from generation to generation and then constantly update and iterate.

Why not recommend such fun, good-looking and easy-to-read popular science books to parents and children around them?

Remember to read the answer?