Nan in Mass... "Natural History"... is this a curriculum?

[Jenn in CA]

Hi Nan!

 

In a post recently you mentioned "Natural History" as a sort of big-picture biology program... is this a curriculum, or if not could you enlighten me as to what you were referring to? I'm intrigued.

 

You also mentioned Conceptual Physics, which we like. My 9th grader is reading through the text and readers. He really enjoys them. DH is a community college physics teacher and he picked up CP years ago as a high school student-teacher... the school was getting rid of them, and his mentor-teacher said, "Keep a set! They're great!"

 

Jennifer

[Kareni]

I'm not Nan; however, I believe she is referring to the Mother of Divine Grace (MODG) syllabus for Natural History. Here is a link to one place that sells it:

 

http://www.adoremusbooks.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1114http://www.adoremusbooks.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1114

 

 

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Just Another Jen]

You can also order it from here and save a bit of money:

http://www.allcatholicbooks.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=ACB&Product_Code=MG25x

[Nan in Mass]

If you read the first few pages of Creepy Crawlers and the Scientific Method, it explains how to design an experiment. We did lots of extra observations, since we live and vacation in places where there is lots going on, some year-long, like a weather log and our frost-line experiment, some shorter. Some we made into proper experiments. We did extra reading, too, some whole books, some just bits. In the Shadow of a Rainbow and The Tracker are two which come to mind. We did lots and lots of work with nature guides. I made sure my sons knew how to use Newcomb's Wildflower Guide and some of our winter guides, like Winter Weed Finder, which required memorizing some botony vocab and learning to use a dicotomous key. We read a number of Stoke's nature guides cover to cover, especially the insect, bird, and mammal ones. We did some work with Tom Brown's nature books and Audubon programs. We did a bit of geology, astronomy, and some work with different habitats. We read the photosynthesis section of a biology book. We did some work with pond water and its tiny swimmies, and tidepools. We used a microscope and a telescope. And we did a little bit about vernal ponds. We could have kept on doing natural history for the full 4 years and covered just about everything, but I thought it would be easier to divide out physics (in the form of ham radio and Conceptual Physics), and teach it as a separate subject, and I want my son to have a formal lab experience and some proper chemistry, since it is at the bottom of everything. That also gives him a bit of variety on his transcript GRIN, as if Natural History wasn't varied enough. Not everyone is familiar with the term and what it entails, though. You, of course, don't have to do everything we did. We worked on it for at least two solid years without doing any other science, and are still working on it here and there, because that is sort of what we do now. We do history very lightly. If you are a history family, you might be happy just doing the MODG syllabus. ;) We live on a lake, sail, and are out in nature all the time, so we do tons. I consider this to be the most important thing to teach my children, other than being strong and good and perhaps communicating well, which in our family are tied heavily in with the natural world as well. But that is our family. Yours, of course, will be different.

 

Anyway, have fun with the natural history! It is definately lots of fun. Except when you are worried about the baby bird somebody gave you or the squirrel the cat dragged in. But as I said, those things (probably) don't have to be part of your life if you don't want them to be. You can learn a lot from just the MODG syllabus.

 

-Nan

[Beth in Central TX]

Dear Nan,

 

I believe you recommended the Natural History Syllabus on the old high school board. Science is my weakest and least favorite subject. It's the one area that I don't look forward to teaching in high school. So, I thought I would acquire a desire to teach it. The Natural History Syllabus is doing just that. Thank you for the recommendation.

 

Surprisingly the syllabus is also improving my writing skills. I was really just interested in the information about the experiment forms, the science related questions on Fabre's book, and the guidelines for writing science papers. However, I've found the 10th grade rubric for key literary skills and good papers to be invaluable.

 

I don't have a lot of time to devote to the syllabus, but I'm slowly working through it. As spring arrives, and the bugs come back out, I'll hopefully pick up the pace.