If you are not familiar with the many "Eyewitness" books, they are filled with numerous high-quality photographs with supporting explanatory text. They are excellent (and fun) references for almost any age, although I believe them to be particularly appropriate for children grades 4 through 12. My 6-year old had fun with the "Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Science" -- I did too! If you are familiar with the "Eyewitness" books, you will find that the "Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Science" CD-ROM for Windows retains the features of the "Eyewitness" books while adding some multimedia features. The CD-ROM encyclopedia is graphically (i.e., photograph) oriented, and the graphics are superb. I reviewed the Beta copy of the program, and it has the appearance of a finished product. The "Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Science" is published by Dorling Kindersley (DK) Multimedia.

Installation of the "Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Science" is a simple process through Windows using the Setup program provided on the CD. The Setup program creates a "DK Multimedia" icon in the Program Manager group. Clicking on this icon will reveal two additional icons: "Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Science" (which runs the program), and a "Read Me" text file (containing problemshooting information relating to video display, audio, and CD-ROM problems). Complete installation eats up approximately 7.3 Megabytes of hard disk space. Since this was a Beta copy of the program, no hard copy documentation was provided; however, the encyclopedia is easy to find your way around in without any documentation.

On-line help describing the functions of the encyclopedia is available, but is not really necessary. Navigating your way through the encyclopedia is intuitive, and fosters a "what about this" approach.
Upon startup, the program screen looks like laboratory machinery with numerous science topics for exploration. Using the mouse to click on any of these areas will give you several subtopics to explore, each of which contains varying amounts of additional detail. The subtopics for the major areas of inquiry are: Earth and Universe (The Universe, The Earth, The Solar System, The Big Bang, and Stars), Periodic Table (the periodic table of the elements), Mathematics (Geometry, Arithmetic and Algebra, Graphs and Charts, Trigonometry, Numbers, and Math Reference), Physics (Matter, Machines, Sound, Heat, Atoms, Force and Motion, Energy, Light, Time, Electricity, and Magnetism), Chemistry (Molecules and Compounds, Organic Chemistry, Elements, Reactions), Life Sciences (Continuity of Life, Ecology, Biology, Microbiology, Zoology, Botany, and Biological Maintenance), Who's Who (containing major scientists), and Quiz Master. The "Quiz Master" asks questions either at random or from any of four categories (Energy, Discoveries, Structures, and Microworld); clicking on "Find Out" will take you directly to the appropriate entry in the encyclopedia.

An example of how the encyclopedia works would be to select "Chemistry". You are then given the option of selecting one of the subtopics -- let's pick "Molecules and Compounds". You are then given the following choices: "What is a Molecule?", "What is a Compound?", and "Crystals". Selecting "Crystals" will give you a full screen presentation of photographs with accompanying text, which is read to the user verbatim. Clicking on words highlighted in red will pop-up a window with a definition and other useful relevant information. In the lower left-hand corner of the screen is a "See Also" icon; clicking on this icon will give you options for linking to related information (a handy feature). Information can also be searched and accessed through the A-Z index. Many screens include a multimedia window for viewing action sequences concerning the topic and additional icons in the lower right portion of the screen which provide additional detail. As with the many photographs, the graphic quality of the multimedia video sequences is excellent throughout the encyclopedia.

Don't expect everything scientific to be included. The "Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Science" is not comprehensive and will not contain all information for a particular subject. All important scientists and scientific topics are not included; in particular, the earth science portion seems weak. However, it is so easy to use that it is a good starting point for accessing and exploring general science information. The "Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Science" is an entertaining and fun educational tool for getting kids interested in science, or for boning up on subjects either never learned or long forgotten.

System Tested On:  IBM compatible PC (Gateway 2000) with a 80486 at 66 Mhz; DOS 6.2 & Windows for Workgroups 3.11; 8 Megabytes (MB) of RAM & 420 MB hard drive

Minimum System:  Not specified, but this is what I think: IBM compatible Multimedia PC with 386 or better processor; Microsoft? (MS) Windows 3.1 or later, and MS-DOS 3.1 or later; 4 MB RAM; SVGA graphics card (256 colors) with compatible monitor; MS mouse or 100% compatible; MPC-compatible CD-ROM drive (average seek time of less than one second, and 150 KB/s sustained transfer rate); sound card; speakers