Easter Term 2014

Science for Children

This term we explore how scientific texts have been rewritten for juvenile audiences in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, as well as analysing a work written by two young people themselves. We meet on Mondays from 7.30 to 9pm in the Godwin Room at Clare College (Old Court).

Organised by Julie Barzilay (HPS), and Melanie Keene (Homerton College): please contact us if you would like to join the mailing list. Copies of readings not available online will be put in the Science and Literature Reading Group box file in the Whipple Library. All welcome!

12 May: What Mr Darwin Saw

• Charles Darwin, Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the countries visited during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle round the world (1845 edn). Read the preface and chapter 1 (Porto Praya).
• Wendell Phillips Garrison, What Mr. Darwin Saw in His Voyage Round the World in the ship 'Beagle' (1879). Read the introduction for parents, introduction for children, pages 29–33 in Part I ('The Horse') and pages 92–104 in Part II ('Man'). Feel free to skim the rest of the book.
• Mick Manning and Brita Granström, What Mr Darwin Saw (2009).

 

9 June: Entomological adventures

• The Adventures of Madalene and Louisa: pages from the album of L. and M.S. Pasley, Victorian entomologists.
• Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, The Life of the Fly... by J. Henri Fabre (1913). Read chapter 7, 'The Pond', but feel free to skim the rest of the book as well.
• Louise Seymour Hasbrouck, Insect Adventures by J. Henri Fabre (1917). Read the preface and chapter 1 ('My First Pond'). Feel free to skim the rest of the book.