Ask Your Science Teacher

Answers to Everyday Questions

By: Larry Scheckel

Narrated by: Joel Richards

Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Curiosity stirs the soul of every human. Who has not wondered about how the human body works? Can we drown from drinking too much water? What is a black hole? Can black holes allow us to time travel? Is spontaneous human combustion possible? Do identical twins have the same fingerprints? How do scientists age dinosaur bones? How does gravity make things fall? Why do sunflowers always face the sun? What about a man flying with wings? How big would those wings have to be? How tall can a human grow? Why are tennis balls fuzzy? What happens to the white when snow melts? What does Einstein's famous equation really mean? Do aliens live among us? What is heavy water? Why is it quiet after a snowfall? Why do dogs drool? How risky is driving a car?

Mysteries lurk in our house, our body, the outdoors, in the heavens, and the universe. Over 100 "I always wondered about that" questions and answers are in this abridged edition. Larry Scheckel has taught high school science for over 38 years and writes a weekly science column for the local newspaper.

Known as Mr. Science, Larry Scheckel has given science presentations to thousands of children and adults across the United States. He has been a "full house" presenter at conventions and science seminars. Mr. Science has thrilled audiences for over 35 years with amazing science demonstrations to audiences from kindergarten to adults. Browse the contents of this audiobook and enjoy an entertaining and thoughtful look at how our world works. Discover the secrets of life's most baffling mysteries.

©2011 Larry Scheckel (P)2013 Podium Publishing

A fun listen for lovers of science!`

What does Joel Richards bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He sounded just like my high school science teacher!

Any additional comments?

It's simple;

If you tend to settle on the Discovery Channel.
If Stuff You Should Know with Josh and Chuck is one of your favorites.
If Jamie, with his 'dry' style, is your favorite MythBuster

then you'll enjoy this audiobook!

Such a sad representation of science teachers

I do a lot of reading and listening, including science related reading, for my own entertainment and edification (just completed Peter Burke’s excellent ‘Polymath’ on Audible). And as an instructor myself, I am always concerned about making learning experiences accurate, informative, and stimulating for engagement. I was embarrassed for this man.

The information is simplistic and superficial, with little bits of interesting content occasionally dropped in, often with inaccurate or mispronounced words, names, and/or stories. The tone is redundant and boring.

I’m not sure if he was trying to be informative, or interesting, or just trying to impress, but much of the information would be much clearer (and possibly much more accurate) just taken from Google or Google Scholar.

For example, this “science teacher” refers to Aristotle’s ‘golden mean’ in a way doesn’t seem to reflect any understanding that Aristotle was referring to an ETHICAL dilemma when using the term; “Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency.”

This is the first time, after many years of listening on Audible, I have had to stop before the book was finished, and I was gusting up beyond 2.0 speed by the end, in an attempt to just get it over. I just couldn’t do it.

Should be called “How just using Google yourself can save you lots of time “

Too prattlingly chatty at the outset and sprinkled throughout. The questions he selected to answer...if they indeed came from a source other than himself... aren’t very interesting. The worst thing is his mispronouncing of basic scientific and medical terms that are widely used and saying the drug death of a notable singer was due to ingestion of “Protocol“! It was Propofol. Very poor basic research. Citations for his content are so elementary as to be laughable. A complete waste of time!

Tedious

Imagine every dull and uninspired monotone teacher you ever had sitting next to you on a four-hour bus ride, reciting random facts of little value, memorized with rote dispassion. This is made worse because many of the so-called answers are mere restatements of the question, backed up with relentless, incomprehensible, mindless reciting of long URLs.