ACE biology for the science minded student?

[deltagal]

Hello all,

My son LOVES science. For the last 2 years he has taken science in a tutorial progam, but I'm pondering letting him do his own thing for his sophomore year and simply trying to discern what material would be best for him. Any suggestions? Would ACE's biology be a good fit?

[FaithManor]

What is your goal for science in high school? Honors or AP with a mind to possibly test out of freshman pre-requisites? Basic high school credits...what we would call non-college bound credits or science for a student who will not study science beyond a general education requirement? Hoping to CLEP...tier 1, tier 2, regional school? etc. Demonstrating a higher mastery of subject in order to secure merit aid?

 

Choosing an appropriate curriculum has a lot to do with your end goals.

 

Is the student going to proceed with Advanced Biology/Anatomy Physiology? A & P now pretty much assumes the student had both chemistry plus bio-chem before attempting the higher course material.

 

Let me review ACE Biology for you. ACE Biology is a non-AP, non-Honors course. It does not cover Genetics or Biochemistry in any depth and would not prepare a student for the AP exam...a student may be able to pass a SAT subject exam with this course...I haven't checked on the prep materials for SAT II's in a while, so I'm not certain of the scope and sequence for those. Possibly Creekland, Jane NC, Regentrude, or others will be able to chime in. However, I am doing ACT prep with several students who have gone through the ACE Biology course and I've seen the scope and sequence of topics covered. It is definitely not Honors or AP. What it covers, my students seem to know well...their retention is decent.

 

Honors and AP biology is advanced...the topics typically covered in Freshman College Biology from a reputable four year university is the scope and sequence spread over one year in high school.

 

AP exams do not necessarily require that one study from an AP approved text, but if one does not, then it is very prudent to pick a curriculum that covers all of the topics on the AP.

 

It would preparatory for a general education requirement for non-science major/minors at colleges that have classes thusly labeled...our closest four year university has a course for freshman credit - Biology for Non-Science majors. It can not be used as a prerequisite to any other biology course and is not acceptable for the nursing program. However, for English majors, etc. it's a fine class. ACE should be prepatory for such a course.

 

Also, will the student be headed to a secular university? Evolution is covered in ACE in terms of religious worldview, but not in terms of indepth study. This fits many homeschoolers worldview, however, it also hampers those students who will be taking the AP, SAT II subject test, CLEP, or are headed to secular U. There are very detailed, very direct questions concerning evolutionary biology that will be asked on these exams and higher level science classes at secular U will assume a comfortable knowledge of evolutionary theory, research, etc. prior to enrolling in the class. Not that this can't be learned on the fly; it is something to consider in terms of preparedness for life at secular U. I always advise parents that even if creation based science fits your worldview, it's best to seriously study the opposing view while you can discuss your own values in relation to it. So, if you choose to use ACE and your child is headed to a secular institution post-graduation, I would advice having a back up biology course that your student reads through and discusses with you unless said student will not be taking science classes in college.

 

You can get some idea of what is covered in freshman biology by looking at a practice AP exam online. The ACT website has those available for free.

 

In terms of what is taught in biology today, it has changed a lot since many of us were high schoolers and college students. Advances in medicine, genetics, taxonomy/classification, further understanding of Protista/single cell organisms, etc. has made exponential leaps since then. Much of what constituted college bound biology in my day has been pushed into general science or "life science" (this is a non-college prep class at our local PS. schools) with a re-tooling of biology to a more technical understanding.

 

Some schools are also changing their course progression to put Chemistry first followed by biology because of the bio-chem. This is usually fine for the student who completed algebra 1 in 8th grade. For my son, he wanted to get AP biology out of the way and I taught the needed basic chemistry as needed. So, as part of considering what you will use for biology, you want to also consider your course progression and what order you want to study many topics.

 

Again, so much depends on what your goal is at the end of high school and of course, fitting the student's need is paramount.

 

Faith

[kiwi mum]

I wouldn't use it with a science minded student, but then I would also assume that most science minded students had already done biology by their sophomore year.

 

What it covers, my students seem to know well...their retention is decent.

 

This may depend on the student. I used it for one student, non college bound, just "get 'er done". She was able to do it all on short term memory. Sit the test, move onto the next PACE, forget everything from the previous one because you don't need it any more. That worked for her situation, but was not what I wanted for my other two students.

 

So it really will depend what your goals are.

[deltagal]

So helpful. Thank you both. He is just now completing Algebra I as a freshman. He is a slow bloomer, but has definitely come into his own academically in the past year. He's a very strong student, but he hasn't jumped through all the hoops that many others have at this point. He is college bound, but at this point is uncertain about a major. His expressed interests are across the board - computer science, pre-med, or ... Our approach to science up until this year for him has been a living books approach - with notebooking, sketching, narrations. This son devours it and has always tested off the charts in the science area (not others). He desires to go to a large, public university - possibly Virginia Tech. This year as a freshman he is taking a high school level Earth Science course through a tutorial. The progression this program uses is 9th grade - Earth Science (Holt McDougal text), 10th grade - Biology (Prentice-Hall text), 11th grade - Chemistry, 12th grade - Physics.