Secular Science?

[cseitter]

My son will be starting 9th next year and I was re-reading TWTM. It doesn't seem to have much in the way of options other than my local CC and apologia. He can't start at the local CC until he is 16 so that is out. We did Rainbow Science this year.

 

What are good secular options? I don't mind the creationism theory but I also want the evolution theory to be taught. Also my son says as of right now he would like to be an orthopedic doctor.

 

Also I was looking at the books for Source Reading that were suggested. Has anyone used Joy Hakim's series for this? The Story of Science? They come with workbooks and such if you wanted them. If you have used these for your high-schooler, how was it used?

 

Thanks!

[AngieW in Texas]

I used Oak Meadow's Biology program this year. They use the Holt text. The syllabus schedules the entire book and usually schedules one lab each week. Most of the labs are paper labs rather than actual experiments. By paper lab, I mean that experimental data is given to work with. The OM teacher manual has the answers to all the questions in the syllabus and to all the labs assigned in the syllabus.

 

I am going to use Giancoli's Physics instead of OM's because they use Saxon and that would not work at my house.

 

I plan to use OM's chemistry after that. They are now using a Prentice Hall text for that.

 

When my youngest is ready, I will have her do chemistry first, then biology, then physics. Most biology courses start off with heavy-duty biochemistry that's a lot easier if you already have chemistry under your belt.

[Kareni]

If you do a tag search and type in the word 'Secular' and then pause, you'll see many different tags which include, amongst others, astronomy, biology, and physics. Narrow the search to include only the high school board and you'll find some helpful threads. There is also a 'science secular' tag which might prove helpful.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Corraleno]

For 9th grade biology, look at Biology by Miller & Levine and Biology: Exploring Life by Campbell (both published by Pearson/Prentice Hall). Both texts have been discussed extensively here, and you can see samples (I believe) on the Pearson School website.

 

Jackie

[gingersmom]

You might want to check out Indiana University or University of Nebraska.

 

They both offer high school for homeschoolers and they both use school textbooks as their spine. University of Nebraska uses a Glencoe science textbook.

[emubird]

The Story of Science is interesting, but it's more history than science. It would be a good supplement, but that wouldn't be much of a science credit.

 

How intensive are you looking for? And what particular science? There are college texts that are pretty good, but take a fair amount of work. There are also high school texts, but we haven't found those to be easy to understand. The written texts tend to be "simplified' to the point of being hard to follow.

 

For biology, we've done kind of a mishmash, not a program. This has ranged from the Reader's Digest How Nature Works to lots of videos (David Attenborough is good). We also did some reading in "popular" texts (The Dinosaur Heresies, The Double Helix). However, we have a big advantage in that both my husband and I have PhDs in biology, so when we run into a concept, we just explain it. This has always worked better for us than the textbook route.

 

My daughter considered AP bio (but we didn't get around to it). For that we would have probably used the Campbell college text.

 

You might look into online lectures. This is one at Berkeley:

 

http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details_new.php?seriesid=2010-B-7703&semesterid=2010-B

 

I haven't watched that one, although I have gone through a couple other lectures at Berkeley which have been good.

 

We did try the lectures on biology at Yale (I think it was Yale), but they weren't so useful. I think all the biology was being taught in the sections with the TAs while the professors mostly talked about how exciting biology is, with a few examples.

 

For chemistry, we used a few chapters of the Zumdahl college text.

 

My older daughter never got off the ground with physics, so she just took it dual enrollment at a college. For the younger one, we've been attempting to use Conceptual Physics by Hewitt. It's been ok, but we have to do a lot of picking and choosing. It also has a lot of incomprehensible text trying to explain a figure that is perfectly obvious. A lot of times, I have to steer my daughter away from reading the text because it's just confusing her. Also, the problems aren't all that I would hope for. For 9th grade, though, it seems to be passable. We'll want something more meaty for the later years. (I believe this is the college text, but it's pretty simple. It's for nonmajors.)

 

There is a somewhat decent lecture course at the MIT site in physics, but we found it somewhat difficult to use because the picture quality wasn't so good. (This was what my older daughter started on and didn't finish.) I found I'd have to watch it with her and then copy out on paper what was up on the board. I could kind of make it out because I knew what it was supposed to be, but she couldn't read the fuzzy letters on her own.

[Joan in GE]

For a 9th grade science, I would recommend one of the Georgia Public Broadcasting sciences - chem or physics...It is true that we have only used physics and only glanced at the chem classes, but the teacher in charge, the one who I think does the vector explanations in physics, seems quite knowledgeable....

 

Here is a link for the chemistry episodes. On the left sidebar you have the choice for physics.

 

When you click on the episode, there is a little "watch" link up in the box towards the right.

 

Here is the thread where there is lots more info...Last year it did go offline and then went back online in April. On the thread, they tell you how to download the videos...

 

I'll have to write the teacher to ask which books she used for chemistry...

 

For beginning high school science, I think this is easier to use than MIT and really meant as a video course instead of just a taped classroom scene, so they use every minute of the video time...

 

Joan

[Amy in TX]

I also want a secular biology text, and we will be using Singapore's Biology Matters next year (for 10th grade). It has a text, workbook, and planned experiments, and looks rigorous but not overwhelming. It's been discussed here several times--search the boards for "Singapore Biology" or "secular biology." Also check Singapore's website (sorry I don't have the link right now but if you google you'll find it.)

 

:)