busymama7 Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 We are mapping out our high school program at our coop and want to have it set and rotating. Will it matter if some kids take physics b4 chemistry when they are juniors? We want to offer 9th grade physical science and biology every other year and then chemistry and physics every other year. Is this going to be problem? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
April in CA Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 Hi! You might run into issues with math-readiness, depending on what physics you plan to use. First year-chem requires good basic algebra skills, but physics requires more advanced algebra, I believe. My son took physics concurrently with precalculus, and he was glad he had already studied algebra. Hope this helps! Blessings, April Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngieW in Texas Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 It doesn't matter whether you do chemistry before or after physics, but it sure does help to do chemistry before biology. The problem that you're most likely to run into is that chemistry just requires Algebra I, but physics generally requires Algebra II. I'm teaching AP Physics B to two kids who are taking Algebra II along with physics, but they're both very mathy, so they haven't had any problems even when we got to logarithms and natural logarithms and exponentials in physics before they got to it in Algebra II. I was able to just teach them what they needed to know to do the physics as we got to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
busymama7 Posted March 19, 2011 Author Share Posted March 19, 2011 I havent seen chemistry before biology listed anywhere. Why do you say that? I thought the reason they said bio first is so that the kids would have enough math to do chemisty. Please enlighten! I was hoping that if we knew a few years ahead of time that we would be able to have the kids in line math wise since we would know. Does anyone have any other suggestions for us to avoid teaching 4 levels of science every year? Is there another way? We will have a small group of high school age children next year(3-6) but LOTS coming up the ranks in very committed families, highly unlikely to put kids in school at any point. We want to have a plan laid out so that we dont have to re-think it every year. Having lab sciences is a huge priority for us. We wont have any kids older than 9th/10th grade this year, unless new families join. Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 It doesn't matter whether you do chemistry before or after physics, but it sure does help to do chemistry before biology. The problem that you're most likely to run into is that chemistry just requires Algebra I, but physics generally requires Algebra II. I'm teaching AP Physics B to two kids who are taking Algebra II along with physics, but they're both very mathy, so they haven't had any problems even when we got to logarithms and natural logarithms and exponentials in physics before they got to it in Algebra II. I was able to just teach them what they needed to know to do the physics as we got to it. I agree. DD is taking algebra/trig based physics, but has only completed algebra 1 and geometry, she has only started algebra 2. She was able to learn the necessary trigonometry quickly (really, it's just sine and cosine in a right triangle), and needed a little bit about logarithms and exponential function for the second semester physics. For physics, the student needs a strong working knowledge of linear equations, systems of linear equations, and the occasional quadratic equation -these skills need to have been mastered and can not really be learned concurrently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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