Seven-year-old Mallory learns that taking a nine-pound rock from a public park is a lot different from collecting a few pebbles or stones. His twin sister, Melody, doesn’t think it’s such a big deal, but apparently everyone else does. Mallory and his Dad travel back to the Indiana Dunes both to follow up with the local police sergeant on the lost item that Mallory found and also to fulfill Mallory’s hour of public service to settle his debt for removing the rock from the park.
Checking out a bat cave isn’t such a good idea if your dog is along. Humans may not hear the bats squealing, but dogs sure do. Rufus takes off in the opposite direction. Mallory is off to the rescue, except that Mallory himself needs rescuing as he tumbles into a sinkhole.
The Palisades trail gets steeper and steeper. Suddenly, there it is. The great Mississippi River. “How wide is the 
river?” Melody wants to know, reluctant to leave the magnificent view. She and her brother get a lesson on estimating distances, based on comparing it with things you already know, such as car lengths and soccer fields.
Our main focus of BioFables is on illuminating STEM principles through entertaining stories. However, we need to emphasize that STEM knowledge and, especially, applying STEM in the real world require a balancing Humanities perspective. Science and Humanities represent the two sides of practical human learning, left-brain (analytical) and right-brain (creative).
This is why we are building several tools to help you determine the value of each BioFables book’s STEM and Humanities content in selecting which BioFables books to give to your young readers:
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- Table of all STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) Knowledge Gateways, Subjects and Topics
- Table of all Humanities Knowledge Gateways, Subjects and Topics
- Table of STEM and Humanities learning topics by Chapter
The first table presents a summary of all the STEM Knowledge Gateways (or branches, if you prefer), Subjects and Topics occuring in Palisades Escapades. This will give you an overvew of the entire book’s STEM lessons that are woven into the Palisades Escapades story.
The second table provides the same information for the Humanities lessons.
The table of STEM and Humanities places the combined learning topics into the specific chapter where it occurs. We’re in the process of updating each book’s topic reference tables. The table shows the breadth of each book’s content, identified by chapter. Subjects and topics of the middle column appear in bold, followed by abbreviated versions of their Knowledge Gateway(s) in parentheses. The table should be helpful in discussing each book as your children progress through the chapters. Follow the links for further investigation. Child-friendly sites appear in orange.
Want to make things even more interesting? Learn about taking the BioFables Challenge.
Please be aware that subjects and topics are unique to each book, so the following outlines do not reflect a complete list of subjects and topics within any category.
Thanks for your patience as we build these resources for you.
STEM Content: Entire Book 4, Palisades Escapades
Branches and sub-branches in Book 4
- Biology: Insects; Animals; People
- Earth, Space Science: Geology; Geography; Weather
- Math: Symbols; Arithmetic; Comparisons
Specific subjects and topics appear in the right column, next to their respective branches and sub-branches.
| BRANCHES/SUB-BRANCHES | SUBJECTS AND TOPICS |
| BIOLOGY | Life and living things |
| Insects | Habits of fireflies, cicadas and crickets |
| Animals | Prehistory: Petrified sea creatures, dinosaurs |
| Birds: Goldfinches | |
| Dogs: range of hearing | |
| People | Eye-ear coordination |
| Getting the wind knocked out of you |
|
| Relieving muscle aches | |
| More evidence of human extremophile ability | |
| EARTH, SPACE SCIENCE | Related to planet Earth and beyond |
| Geology | Earth’s physical structure, substance, history, processes |
| Rocks | Just an ordinary-looking rock? Check for fossils |
| How did cliffs form? Some ways: carved by glacier movement; rise and fall of inland seas; movement in Earth’s crust | |
| Geography | Continents, countries, oceans and other waters, and their features |
| Mississippi Palisades State Park | Watch out for those sinkholes! |
| A surprising view at the top of Sentinel Trail | |
| Mississippi River | Natural border between Illinois and Iowa; interesting river facts |
| Great Lakes | Lake Michigan; Inland sea |
| Weather | Wind |
| MATH | Numbers, quantities and analysis |
| Symbols | Size, length and amount, either actual or estimated |
| Arithmetic | Ways of adding, dividing |
| Comparisons | Rules of thumb help to relate big and little things |
NOTE: Tables of Humanities and Values content for Sand Sack are being prepared and will be uploaded as soon as possible.
| CHAPTER | SUBJECTS/TOPICS | RESOURCE LINKS |
| Helpful Hints | Mississippi Palisades State Park (Earth) | |
| Chapter 1 Unfinished Business |
Removing natural objects; Returning lost items; Community service (Social); Wind, dunes movement (Earth) | |
| Chapter 2 Community Service |
Community service (Social); Embedded fossils in rock; Glaciers; Lake Michigan; Great Lakes; Inland Sea (Earth); Petrified sea creatures (Biology); Drawing (Arts); Addition methods (Math) | Glaciers |
| Chapter 3 A Rock-Solid Contract |
Agatha Christie; Sherlock Holmes (Language); Community service; Legal contract (Social); Human relationships; Giving back (Values); Dinosaurs (Biology); Software engineering (Work) | Agatha Christie |
| Chapter 4 Arriving at the Mississippi Palisades |
Mississippi Palisades State Park (Earth); Exercise; Eating habits; Games (Health); Fireflies; Cicadas and crickets; Eye-ear coordination (Biology); Research (Work) | |
| Chapter 5 A Morning’s Hike |
Hiking; Breakfast; Snacks; Drinking water; Getting wind knocked out of you (Health); Map reading; Hike planning (Life Skills); Dog hearing (Biology); Sentinel Trail; Sinkholes (Earth); Disobedience (Values) | Hearing ranges |
| Chapter 6 A Spectacular View |
Mississippi River (Earth); Native Americans (History); Division; Relating different sizes (Math); Cicadas emerging from shells (Biology) | Mississippi River Facts |
| Chapter 7 The Best Laid Plans |
Resilience, adaptability (Life Skills); Photography; Singing (Arts); Symbols (Math); Mississippi River facts; Natural border (Earth); Word derivations (Language); Native Americans; Explorers Joliet and Marquette (History) | |
| Chapter 8 More Escapades |
Mark Twain (Arts); Swimming ability (Life Skills); Birds, Goldfinch (Biology); Need for recognition (Values); Word derivation (Language); Cliff formation (Earth) | |
| Chapter 9 On the Way Home |
Public behavior (Social); Relieving muscle aches (Biology, Health); Extremophile ability (Biology) | |
| Unfinished Business Now Finished; Next Adventure | Compassion (Values) |