Academic Encounters: The Natural World helps students at the low-intermediate level develop the reading, writing, and study skills they need in order to meet the demands of high school or college academic courses in an English-speaking environment. This text engages students with academic readings, photographs, illustrations, and graphics on stimulating topics within the fields of Earth science and biology. Tasks that accompany readings develop important reading skills such as reading for detail, skimming, reading critically, and applying what you have read. Students also learn study skills such as highlighting, note taking, and preparing for a quiz. Each chapter ends with a guided writing assignment, and tasks to build academic language and writing skills occur throughout the book.

The companion book, Academic Listening Encounters: The Natural World, develops students' listening, note-taking, and discussion skills using authentic interviews and lectures and a variety of pre- and post-listening activities.