Earth Science (5th Edition) Student Text moves the student from the lithosphere of the earth itself to the hydrosphere in and on the earth to the atmosphere surrounding the earth and finally out into space visiting the solar system and the rest of the universe. All of this is a quest to understand God’s created world. Case studies and other activities encourage students to think like scientists as they develop a biblical perspective of earth and space.
While much of the 5th edition is very similar to the 4th—for example, the table of contents is nearly identical—you'll want to be aware of some changes. There are new illustrations of course, but most of the formatting change is to the text itself, which is slightly smaller but now includes paragraph breaks, giving the entire book a cleaner feel. Regarding content, there are two main differences. First, the 5th edition decreases the number of appendices by about half; not a big deal as much of this content can easily be found elsewhere and/or gets dated. The larger change is in chapter 5, primarily discussing origins and the age of the earth, and this has been completely rewritten. I rather like the changes; while BJU maintains a young earth perspective, the tone of the old earth vs. young earth discussion is more objective and sounds less like "us-vs-them."
Did you find this review helpful?