I used many books for resources while putting together my portion of the transportation project. I have chosen two of these resources to review in their usefulness to my project, their relevance for future use as an educator, and how useful they are to the elementary classroom. One of the books I have chosen is Technology Today & Tomorrow by James Fales, Vincent Kuetemyer, and Sharon Brusic. The other book is called the Book of Historical Records by Norris McWhirter.

The book Technology Today & Tomorrow contains a lot of information that deals with technology. It has one whole section devoted to transportation technology. This is the section I focused most on. Within the transportation section there is a brief transportation timeline, a chapter on transportation systems, a chapter on types and modes of transportation, a chapter on power in transportation, and a chapter on vehicle designs and operations. The book has great review questions at the end of each chapter, and I really liked the fascinating facts it had throughout the chapters. The fascinating facts referred to the history of transportation. The book also had some great hands-on activities with step-by-step procedures to follow. I also was partial to the many examples the book contained of how to integrate transportation technology into other subjects, such as math and science. The one thing this book was missing was the history involved in transportation.

The book, Book of Historical Records, focused on just that, the history of transportation. Well, a section of it did anyway. The whole book is like one gigantic timeline. The book has been broken up into categories of events in history. Then each category has subcategories. There is a whole category on transportation. Each category starts it's timeline with the earliest known facts; most are before 1 AD. Then the historical records end in the year 2000; the year the book was published. Everything in the book is historical facts and events throughout the world. Along with each historical date and event would be a few sentences on whatever historical event/date was being covered. Because the book covers such and enormous amount of information on historical events and facts through out the world, only the main facts from the entire world are covered. For example, in the war section, W.W.I and W.W.II are covered, but none of the smaller wars are covered, such as the Civil War. Although, I felt and found that the transportation section seemed to be covered pretty thoroughly.

Both of these books, Book of Historical Records and Technology Today & Tomorrow, were very relevant to my project. I used the book, Book of Historical Records, to help me distinguish the main events in the history of water transportation. Most of these events I used to help me create a timeline for my project. From there I focused on the inventors, explorers, and modes of transportation. I created web pages for each of these categories to help futures students learn about the history of transportation. Then I used the book, Technology Today & Tomorrow, to help me define transportation, define transportation systems, and explain how different types of transportation work. I also used ideas from some of the activities the book had at the end of all of the chapters. Some activities included how to build your own hovercraft, how to make an airplane, and many more. I also benefited from the cross-curricular ideas at the end of each chapter. They helped me decide what lesson plans to make to go along with the transportation web site.

These books not only helped me on my project but I think they will be great resources in the future. I especially think that the book, Book of Historical Records, will be a great resource for me to look up information I am unsure about. The book, Technology Today & Tomorrow, will definitely be a wonderful resource in the future to help me find ways to integrate technology into other subjects in the classroom. I will probably also use some of the magnificent activity ideas it possess, and I would use the content to help teach children about technology.

The books are also good for the elementary school and students. Both books are pretty simple to read. I was able to find the information I was looking for effortlessly, and both books are a suburb source of information.

The reason why I picked these books to review is because I thought both books were excellent books for all the reasons I listed above. I was able to use both, Book of Historical Records and Technology Today & Tomorrow, for my project on water transportation, and hopefully I will be able to use these books in the future and the classroom.