So Far Investigator’s Field Manual · A DET & CW Casebook

Pluto, moving continents, germs, feathered dinosaurs: twelve cases about ideas everyone was sure of, until they weren’t, and how to test ideas yourself. Ages 10–12, grades 4-6.

For 76 years, Pluto was a planet. For about 1,900 years, people believed heavy things fall faster. Textbooks once printed a “tongue map” that anyone could have disproved in ten minutes.

In So Far, DET discovers that being sure and being right aren’t the same thing, and that the best scientists keep two small words at the end of what they know. Kids meet the people who changed big ideas, then run their own fair tests.

What’s inside (12 cases):

•     Pluto and a sidewalk-sized model of the solar system

•     Continental drift and a cut-and-fit puzzle of the continents

•     Fly jars and mold bread: the experiments behind germ theory

•     Designing a fair test

•     Measuring the Earth with a stick and a shadow, the way Eratosthenes did

•     Drop tests, feathered dinosaurs and a taste test that busts the tongue map

•     Words whose meanings changed, and a thousand-year-old Norse village under the grass

•     The Idea Tester: a method for checking any claim yourself

Every case has three parts:

•     The Case: a short DET & CW story to read aloud, with vocabulary and discussion questions.

•     Field Work: a real hands-on project in science, math, history, geography or language.

•     Your Own File: private pages that turn the case around, so your investigator looks at their own life the same careful way. They decide who reads them.

Good to know:

•     45-page printable PDF, US Letter (8.5 × 11 in), black-and-white line art that prints cleanly at home

•     Stand-alone: no novel or other book needed

•     Ages 10–12 (grades 4–6), great for homeschool, classroom or summer learning

•     Includes a case-file cover sheet, a word search, and a grown-up guide, “Things to Listen For,” with answers to the math and facts

•     Available in a Canadian edition (metric, Canadian examples) and a U.S. edition (US units and spelling, American examples). Please choose the one you need.

•     Print for your own household or one classroom

Part of the Investigator’s Field Manual series from Perspective Detective Studios.

Observe. Investigate. Discover.