Star-Land
Sir Robert Ball, Royal Astronomer of Ireland, wrote up his Christmas lectures for young people at the Royal Institution, starting with the Sun and the Moon and going on to the planets and beyond.
Scanned from a University of Toronto copy.
Homeschool · Science
Science
Classic science books for children and young people, from Agnes Giberne's astronomy and geology to Faraday's candle lectures and Millikan's physics, free to read here or download, with step-by-step teaching guides for four of them, plus free modern open textbooks for older students.
Start here
Four of the books have a teaching guide for every session: Sun, Moon, and Stars and The World's Foundations for about ages 9 to 13, The Chemical History of a Candle for about 11 and up, and A First Course in Physics for older students. Each guide has a question to start with, a passage to read together, a safe thing to try or watch for, and questions to check understanding, with answers.
- Pick a lesson (start with Lesson 1).
- Press Teach this lesson.
- Follow the steps one screen at a time, with the book page beside you.
How to use these books
Old science books are wonderful for the things that do not change. They teach children to look closely, ask why, and follow a careful explanation step by step, often written by the scientists themselves for young audiences. Read a section together, then go and look. Find the stars, sort a handful of pebbles, watch a candle burn, and ask your child to explain back what they saw and why.
Some facts have changed since these books were written, about the planets and their moons, the age of the Earth, and the atom, for example. And some experiments in them are not safe at home. The teaching guides flag both. A short “What we know now” note gives the modern picture, and dangerous experiments are marked watch only, with a safe activity to do instead. For older students, the modern open textbooks at the end of this page are free and up to date.
Astronomy
In rough order of reading age. Ages are rough guides; go by what your child can do.
Sun, Moon, and Stars
Agnes Giberne's “astronomy for beginners”, a friendly tour of the Sun, the Moon, the planets and the stars, written for children and grown-ups alike. Revised by the author to bring it up to date in 1893.
Scanned from a Library of Congress copy.
A Field Book of the Stars
A small book for learning the constellations season by season, one at a time, with a simple diagram for each. Everything in it can be seen with the naked eye or an opera-glass. It was written for the skies of the northern United States.
Scanned from a University of California Libraries copy.
Astronomy with an Opera-Glass
Garrett P. Serviss shows how much of the sky you can explore with a small opera-glass (a pair of binoculars works too), with star maps and directions for finding the constellations and the principal stars.
Scanned from a University of Toronto copy.
The Story of the Heavens
Sir Robert Ball's full-length popular astronomy for older readers, with coloured plates. A deeper read after Star-Land.
Scanned from a University of California Libraries copy.
Geology
In rough order of reading age.
The World's Foundations, or Geology for Beginners
Agnes Giberne's companion to Sun, Moon, and Stars, written on the same plan for beginners of all ages: what rocks are made of and how to read them, the fossils in them, the story of the Earth's past age by age, and the work of rivers and ice.
Scanned from a University of California Libraries copy.
Elementary Lessons in Physical Geography
Sir Archibald Geikie's school book on the familiar features of the Earth's surface, starting from what children already know and have seen.
Scanned from a University of Toronto copy.
The Story of the Hills
H. N. Hutchinson's “book about mountains for general readers”, in two parts: mountains as they are, with their weather, plants and animals, and how mountains were made.
Scanned from a Library of Congress copy.
Chemistry
In rough order of reading age. These books include experiments that are not safe at home; the guides mark them watch only.
The Wonder Book of Chemistry
J.-H. Fabre teaches chemistry as talks by “Uncle Paul” to two boys, Jules and Emile, with experiments made from ordinary things such as bottles and tumblers. Some of the experiments use dangerous substances and are for watching only.
Scanned from a New York Public Library copy.
The Chemical History of a Candle
Michael Faraday's famous lectures to a young audience at the Royal Institution, which start from a burning candle and follow where it leads: the flame, the air, water and breathing. Edited by William Crookes.
Scanned from a University of California Libraries copy.
First Principles of Chemistry
A first-year high school chemistry textbook by five New York City high school teachers, with much attention to how things are made in industry.
Scanned from a University of California Libraries copy.
Physics
The Various Forces of Matter
Faraday's six Christmas lectures to young people at the Royal Institution in 1859–60, on the forces of nature and how they relate to each other, edited by William Crookes. A companion to The Chemical History of a Candle.
Scanned from a Wellcome Library copy.
A First Course in Physics
Robert A. Millikan and Henry G. Gale's physics textbook, which grew out of the elementary physics teaching at the University of Chicago.
Scanned from a University of Toronto copy.
Science for younger children
Gentle read-alouds for younger children, or for anyone starting out.
The Story-Book of Science
J.-H. Fabre's Uncle Paul tells the children true stories of the natural world, beginning with the ants.
Scanned from a University of Toronto copy (the Canadian issue of the Century Co. translation).
The Fairy-Land of Science
Arabella Buckley's ten lectures for children on sunbeams, the air, water and ice, sound, a primrose, a piece of coal and bees, showing the forces of nature as the real “fairies” at work in the everyday world.
Scanned from a University of California Libraries copy.
Modern open textbooks
Free, current textbooks for older students, published under open licenses. They open on their publishers' own sites.
Physics
A full modern high school physics course by Paul Peter Urone and Roger Hinrichs, free to read online. A good next step after Millikan and Gale.
Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/physics/pages/1-introduction
College Physics 2e
The algebra-based introductory college course by the same authors, in more depth than the high school book.
Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/college-physics-2e/pages/1-introduction-to-science-and-the-realm-of-physics-physical-quantities-and-units
Chemistry 2e
A full modern general chemistry course by Paul Flowers, Klaus Theopold, Richard Langley and William R. Robinson. OpenStax also publishes <i>Chemistry: Atoms First 2e</i>, an atoms-first version of the same book.
Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/chemistry-2e/pages/1-introduction
Astronomy 2e
A modern introduction to astronomy, from the night sky and the planets to stars, galaxies and the universe. The up-to-date companion to Giberne and Ball.
Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/astronomy-2e/pages/1-introduction
Physical Geology – 2nd Edition
Steven Earle's comprehensive introduction to physical geology, free to read online. The modern companion to The World's Foundations.
Physical Geology – 2nd Edition by Steven Earle is used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
About these copies
The modern textbooks at the bottom are not public domain: they are free to read under the open licenses shown, from their publishers’ own sites.
Every old book here was published before 1931, so it is in the public domain in the United States: free to read, print and share. The scans are kept by the Internet Archive, which shows them on this page and supplies the PDF downloads. The teaching guides are written for this site. Modern reprints are also sold, if you prefer a clean printed copy.