What's Inside Your Body?: Heart & Blood/Digestion & Respiration

In this opening program of a two-part series (which, in turn, is included in an 8-part series entitled Science is Elementary, series price: $499.95), an adult host and two children take viewers on a whirlwind tour of the circulatory, respiratory, and digestive systems. And I do mean whirlwind: the narrative pace is very fast, barely squeezing in 66 (listed) vocabulary words in under 20 minutes. Although it's meant to be an overview (so there isn't much explanatory detail) with lots of computer animation providing clear visuals of the organs under discussion, the intended audience (advertised as K-6) seems to have been forgotten. Try this sample sentence on for size: "Later, when fatty food enters the duodenum, a hormonal stimulus prompts the gallbladder to contract, forcing bile into the duodenum." Granted, this sentence contains several of the listed 66 vocabulary words to be learned, but it's the quick pacing and other script choices that will leave the average lower-elementary student in the dust--most first graders, even those whose first language is English, will not be familiar with words like "suburban commuter," "eliminate," "absorption," or "subdivide." On top of that, the presentation is not even terribly creative; the hosts basically stand around a table. The factual content is fine, however, and I'd probably recommend this for a junior high or high school biology curriculum, where students would be taking notes (and actually have some understanding of what the heck hormonal impulses are). But for elementary? Not unless it's a very gifted class, and then only with reservations. The other title in the What's Inside Your Body? series is Bones & Muscles/Nervous System (series price: $129.95). The other titles in the Science Is Elementary series are: What in the World? The Earth Explained (2 vols.--Earthquakes & Mountains and Weather & Climate), What's in Space? (2 vols.--The Earth, the Moon and Space Flight and Stars & Planets) and How Does This Work? (2 vols.--Simple Machines and Electricity & Magnetism). Aud: E, I, J, H. (E. Gieschen)