A Free Digital Biology Textbook Is Now Fully Hatched

ByCarl Zimmer
June 30, 2014

Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson has been leading an ambitious project over the past few years to create a free high school biology textbook custom-built for the digital age. It’s called Life on Earth.

In 2012 the team released a sample chapter, and they’ve been releasing more since then. Reviewing the project early on for Download the Universe, anthropologist John Hawks had mixed feelings. He praised its beauty and the pleasure derived from toying with its fancy features, while also questioning how well students will learn from the format.

Now the whole project is complete. You can download the entire book for free here. You’ll need an iPad for the full effect, although I’m currently thumbing through it on iBooks on my laptop. In addition, they’ve put some extra materials together for teachers in iTunes U, which you can access from the book link. I’m curious to know what people think.

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