Hey PBS kids fans: No nerds harmed in making this scientific picture book.
Come explore with Professor Blue & her sled dog Tookie as they trek out into the world (& back inside the lab) to conduct science experiments. A perfect opportunity for kids to reconsider the roles of toilets, drain pipes, lakes, aaaaaand the occasional submarine and think about a deceptively simple question: "Where does our drinking water come from?"
The lab journal offers a glimpse into how to be a scientist by showing kids how our scientist spends her days. Education, curiosity, patience, perseverance, creativity: some of the qualities a scientist needs to have. A fluffy dog does not hurt.
What is this exactly?
--A kids book about dogs?
--A children's science book?
--Or an illustrated storybook?
Why, yes, all of the above! Thanks for asking!
The images in the Professor Blue Lab Journal are cartoony but the science isn't: it comes from MIT.
It's like that old saying:
Pretend is make-believe, make-believe is artificial, artificial can be intelligent, intelligence helps science, science helps humans, humans eat hummus, & hummus is delicious, so thank you for the compliment.
The Professor Blue Top Secret Lab Journal uses material from the Professor Blue videos funded by MIT. Great for children ages 4-8 or kids ages 9-12.
Parents report the following results:
--50.7189031% decrease of noise throughout the house while kids read our book.
--26% increase in kids bugging mom and dad to own their own junior lab coat.
--43.13eleventy% decrease in resistance to washing hands before dinner.
Reactions from our young readers:
--"I can too wear my lab coat to bed."
--"I promise to clear my place at the table for a week if you buy me a laboratory."
--"Why can't we get our own sled dog?"
Our lab journal can be leveraged as a bedtime story, or deployed as a daytime avoiding-tv-tale.
Best for kids 11 & under, and useful to slackers who fell asleep in science classes. Forget what Mrs. Markos told you about pollution, um, twenty years ago? Here's your opportunity to bone up.
Finally, buying this book for your son, daughters, nieces, nephews, cousins, and other truants, offers a sly opportunity for this important concept to seep into their brains: both boys and girls can become scientists...if they want to be!
The length of time your bunsen burner burns may vary.
Professor Blue: serious about science since first grade...maybe not so serious.
Scroll up, click to buy the book now!
About the Author: Maria Laskar is a theatre director, playwright, and songwriter from Montréal, Québec, Canada. After graduating from the National Theatre School she wrote and directed many plays and performances including a children's musical called "Camera Crash". She later created Professor Blue, and wrote and produced video podcasts of Professor Blue in collaboration with MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). She received funding from MIT in order to produce video podcasts of Professor Blue to explain science concepts to kids using humor and music. She received further funding from MIT (Earth System Initiative and the Arts Council) and the CALQ (Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec) to create video installations and perform live shows at the Cambridge Science Festivals and the Museum of Science in Boston. She also researched and wrote capsules for "The Suzuki Report" a radio show hosted by David Suzuki, Canada's most famous scientist, and broadcast throughout Canada. The first books in a series, the Professor Blue Top Secret Lab Journal and Professeure Bleue Top Secret Journal de Bord (French) are based on the Professor Blue videos.
