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The Sciences: An Integrated Approach, for an 8th grader?


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My son loves the looks of The Sciences: An Integrated Approach, which I bought due to a recent thread, thank you very much (and you know who you are!). Those of you that own it as well, do you think it would work well for a very science oriented 13 year old? It does integrate things well, and I love the labs at the end of each chapter, but it seems it could be fairly dense for an 8th grader. Or would I be better off with something like Dr. Art's Guide to Science? He's trying to build a stronger basis in general science over the next year before doing conceptual physics (probably Hewitt's [college] book) in 9th.

 

Thanks!

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:leaving:   :D

 

 

Well, hopefully someone who is actually using it with a middle schooler will answer . . .  I'm using it more for overall planning purposes at this point, but don't anticipate having Shannon read from it and do the questions and exercises till high school.  I'd do Dr. Art's first - it's more approachable, for sure, but still gives a very big-picture systems view.  We're planning on using Dr. Art's next year in 7th.  The Sciences is a college textbook, after all! I don't feel bad that my 7th grader won't be able to whiz through it!

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I am reading Dr. Art to my DD in 5/6th grade. She takes notes as I read. I think Dr. Art is more appropriate for middle grades as a supplement. I am using Dr. Art as filler until the end of the year. I don't think Dr. Art would work well as a spine for a full year of science, but it does provided a "Big Picture" of science. Have you looked at CPO science? My older DD did Hewitt's Conceptual Physics in 8th grade. She didn't finish the text, and now she is revisiting the text in 11th grade.

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My son loves the looks of The Sciences: An Integrated Approach, which I bought due to a recent thread, thank you very much (and you know who you are!). Those of you that own it as well, do you think it would work well for a very science oriented 13 year old? It does integrate things well, and I love the labs at the end of each chapter, but it seems it could be fairly dense for an 8th grader. Or would I be better off with something like

I started using it with Trinqueta by watching The Joy of Science (I got the dvds used on Amazon for $25--so look there first before buying from the TC). The book is dense, but the dvds made it doable, especially if you buddy read. We only did 2 lectures before Landry Academy opened up a Middle School Bio/Chem/Phys Lab Intensive in Houston for mid-May that I had a free registration for from their Christmas specials, so I dropped the JoS and dug out a life science book to read for a month before the lab to get T up to speed on the bio portion. We'll go back to the JoS in the summer, but we weren't going to be able to reach the biology portion in time and I didn't want to skip around. In conclusion, if you don't have anything fall out of the sky, watching the Joy of Science along with the textbook is very doable for a bright middle schooler.

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I just came across this. I may have a winner!

 

You might also consider this one:  Conceptual Integrated Sciences - Explorations  It's the high school version of Hewitt's Conceptual Integrated Sciences that you linked earlier, which is a college text.  I bought the college version and find it too dense to use right now with my rising 7th grader even though he loves science.

 

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I started using it with Trinqueta by watching The Joy of Science (I got the dvds used on Amazon for $25--so look there first before buying from the TC). The book is dense, but the dvds made it doable, especially if you buddy read. We only did 2 lectures before Landry Academy opened up a Middle School Bio/Chem/Phys Lab Intensive in Houston for mid-May that I had a free registration for from their Christmas specials, so I dropped the JoS and dug out a life science book to read for a month before the lab to get T up to speed on the bio portion. We'll go back to the JoS in the summer, but we weren't going to be able to reach the biology portion in time and I didn't want to skip around. In conclusion, if you don't have anything fall out of the sky, watching the Joy of Science along with the textbook is very doable for a bright middle schooler.

 

I think that's a great idea - the book and the lectures go really well together.  Which makes sense, since the lecturer is one of the authors . . . . 

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You might also consider this one:  Conceptual Integrated Sciences - Explorations  It's the high school version of Hewitt's Conceptual Integrated Sciences that you linked earlier, which is a college text.  I bought the college version and find it too dense to use right now with my rising 7th grader even though he loves science.

 

 

Planning (90% sure) on going with this. Now I am trying to decide if I need the Minds-On Hands-On Activity Book to go with it, or if I should use GEMS guides for any necessary extra hands-on.

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