Concurrent Study of Sciences - momofCM

[BearLair]

"My husband and I had a European education close to a classical education. The difference was in the sciences. They were all studied concurrently every year, starting in the 7th grade."

 

(do not know how to quote from different thread & didn't want to hijack that one)

 

I thought I had seen a discussion on studying all the sciences each year rather than one science per yer.

 

Maybe someone can direct me to that thread if it exists.

 

Hopefully momofCM will elaborate, & that others will chime in as well, with information on this study method.

 

Thanks!

[Aquinas Academy]

Is this the thread you're thinking of? I'm doing concurrent sciences with my highschooler and am happy to answer any questions you might have. :)

[elegantlion]

Is this the thread you're thinking of? I'm doing concurrent sciences with my highschooler and am happy to answer any questions you might have. :)

 

I do have a question. I know you are using more traditional textbooks. Do you do all the sciences at once, or do you complete several weeks of one science and move to the next?

 

I'm planning this course for high school as well. My concern is if we do say 12 weeks of physics, then 12 weeks of chem, and then 12 weeks of bio that makes it easier to get behind. We always seem to get bunched up in our schedule at some point in the year. If we did rotated by days we'd have less chance of that happening. However, I wonder if the switching between subjects that often is confusing to the student, especially if you're using subject specific texts instead of a fully integrated one.

 

To the OP: hope you don't mind me jumping in here as well. I'm still planning our study, but will do integrated for the first three years of high school.

[BearLair]

Janette - yes! That is the post, thank you. I had read only a snippet in search of something else. Wow, lots of wonderful info there.

 

I have some of the same questions as Paula. If you've time to give an outline of your science basic routine/types of resources/schedule, etc., that would be great.

 

Thanks!

[regentrude]

I do have a question. I know you are using more traditional textbooks. Do you do all the sciences at once, or do you complete several weeks of one science and move to the next?

 

I'm planning this course for high school as well. My concern is if we do say 12 weeks of physics, then 12 weeks of chem, and then 12 weeks of bio that makes it easier to get behind. We always seem to get bunched up in our schedule at some point in the year. If we did rotated by days we'd have less chance of that happening. However, I wonder if the switching between subjects that often is confusing to the student, especially if you're using subject specific texts instead of a fully integrated one.

 

 

You did not ask me... but in case you are interested: when concurrent teaching of sciences is done in European schools, it actually IS concurrent: three or four periods of biology, three or four periods of physics, three or four periods of chemistry each week, every year. It is not done in blocks.

[elegantlion]

You did not ask me... but in case you are interested: when concurrent teaching of sciences is done in European schools, it actually IS concurrent: three or four periods of biology, three or four periods of physics, three or four periods of chemistry each week, every year. It is not done in blocks.

 

I always appreciate you answering my questions, especially the science ones. Thank you.

 

If students are taking three or four periods of three different sciences, how many other subjects are scheduled? Would they do this for two years, three years? I've read a lot on the English(British) school system, but not a lot on the German.

 

I'm trying to see the logistics of this working in an American setting, when trying to work with about seven credits per year. Would it be spread out too thin to do science once per day five times per week?

[regentrude]

If students are taking three or four periods of three different sciences, how many other subjects are scheduled? Would they do this for two years, three years? I've read a lot on the English(British) school system, but not a lot on the German.

 

 

In Germany, high school students take a lot more different subjects concurrently, but of course not every subject every day. The breakdown is somewhat like this:

math , German, two foreign languages, three sciences - each 4 periods(a 45 minutes) per week

history, geography, ethics/philosophy, arts, music, PE. - 1 or 2 periods per week, depending on subject

 

students have between 32 and 35 periods weekly.

 

In the last two years, students can specialiye and take advanced courses in some subjects, basic courses in others, and I believe they get to drop some subjects.

 

I'm trying to see the logistics of this working in an American setting, when trying to work with about seven credits per year. Would it be spread out too thin to do science once per day five times per week?

One could simply circumvent the "7 credits per year" by making it "28 credits total"and award credit for each completed subject at the very end.

The "1 subject 1 period per day for a year" system makes scheduling easy in public schools, but does not have to be the only system.

[emubird]

We've been doing bio and chem concurrently, just because of the way things worked out. It's a fair amount of work. We're probably doing what would be considered the second year of each (or AP level), so it's more advanced.

 

I don't think we'd have time to do physics at the same time as these two. However, if we were doing a lower level of chem and bio (or going a lot slower), we could fit in a lower level physics.

 

I'm not sure it would be possible to fit in all 3 at the second year/AP level, still get in the math that's necessary for AP/2nd year physics, and fit in everything else besides.

 

So my guess is that concurrent science works fine if one isn't trying to do AP level. Then, probably only 2 sciences could be fit in, unless you drop a lot of other things.

[elegantlion]

In Germany, high school students take a lot more different subjects concurrently, but of course not every subject every day. The breakdown is somewhat like this:

math , German, two foreign languages, three sciences - each 4 periods(a 45 minutes) per week

history, geography, ethics/philosophy, arts, music, PE. - 1 or 2 periods per week, depending on subject

 

students have between 32 and 35 periods weekly.

 

In the last two years, students can specialiye and take advanced courses in some subjects, basic courses in others, and I believe they get to drop some subjects.

 

One could simply circumvent the "7 credits per year" by making it "28 credits total"and award credit for each completed subject at the very end.

The "1 subject 1 period per day for a year" system makes scheduling easy in public schools, but does not have to be the only system.

 

Thank you, that was very helpful.

[Aquinas Academy]

Janette - yes! That is the post, thank you. I had read only a snippet in search of something else. Wow, lots of wonderful info there.

 

I have some of the same questions as Paula. If you've time to give an outline of your science basic routine/types of resources/schedule, etc., that would be great.

 

Thanks!

I'm about to head out the door, but I'll post my schedule when I get back. :)

[Aquinas Academy]

This year DD14 has been studying biology, chemistry, and physics. My plan is for her to continue studying these for the next two years (grades 10 and 11) and then in grade 12 she can choose to either continue with one or more of those sciences or study a different branch of science. One thing that was talked about in the thread I linked is that Europeans who do concurrent science are spending more time on science than Americans who only study one branch of science per year. DD14 isn't very sciency so my goal isn't for her to spend lots of time on science. Since we're spreading bio, chem, and physics out over three years DD will pretty much get the equivalent of doing one year per subject.

For the past year we've been doing science three days per week, 1-1.5 hours per day. Generally speaking, DD does biology on Tuesday, chemistry on Thursday, and physics on Saturday (I know, I know, school on the weekend. :tongue_smilie:But I needed DH to help out with physics and this is what worked best). This schedule is very flexible and we've had weeks where we've focused more on science than the others, but as a general guide, that's what we did. For the upcoming year I'm changing our schedule so that we do science every day for 30-45 min. I think this will be a better schedule for us, but time will tell. Here's my planned schedule:

Mon: Bio

Tue: Chem

Wed: Physics

Thur: Bio

Fri: Chem

Sat: Physics

Aside from the physics on Saturday, we don't really need to do this order, but it's alphabetical and my OCD brain likes that. :001_smile: It's all very flexible though, so each week will be slightly different.

I wouldn't say there's been confusion switching between texts. The difficult part is that with the three day schedule I had this year we were only studying each branch once per week and it was easy to forget things by the time the next week rolled around. This is one of the reasons I'm switching our schedule so that we do science everyday and each branch twice per week.

As far as resources go, I've used US textbooks and am just spreading them out over three years. I also have some Teaching Company courses and living books that we've used as well. And then there are the experiments which we've really slacked off on. I mean we've done some, but probably not as many as we should. I plan to remedy this in the coming year.

[elegantlion]

Thank you, Janette. That was very helpful. My current thinking is that we will do science 5x/week, rotating physics, chem, bio. At the end of three weeks we will have covered each subject five times.

 

It may end up where we can get done with bio in two years, if we work a little harder. Ds doesn't care about biology that much and that way in 11th grade we could spend more time on physics and chem. That's that thought right now anyway.

 

We'll add in some Teaching Company and living books as well.

[BearLair]

Janette & Paula - thank you both for sharing this information. My planning wheels are just begining to churn and this information will be very helpful.

 

I'll be watching for any updates on your science programs this year. Hope they are a tremendous success & you'll have much more wisdom to share.

 

:)

[momofCM]

My kids are not in highs school yet, but since dd just completed 7th grade, we've been experimenting with how to implement all the sciences. So far we've used CPO Earth, Physical and Life Science. We started out dividing the books in 3 so we kind of knew what to cover each year. I give dd a weekly schedule and she completes her work whenever she wants but it has to be finished by 3pm on Friday.

 

In my mind she would complete each science subject on a different day, but she told me she prefers to finish a full chapter for each science. So that's what we've been doing. After finishing a chapter of Life Science, she goes on with Earth Science etc.

 

In European schools (not sure everywhere though. I know they still do it in the ones dh and I went. I have a niece and a nephew attending there now) all sciences are covered every week. It depends on the track you are on. Because I chose heavy math and science my roster looked different from my siblings, who chose to emphasize languages.

 

As of 9th grade on I had 2 periods of biology, 2 of physics, 2 of chemistry, and 2 of geography, each week, throughout the school year. On top of that for each of these subjects (minus geography) I had a 1 period lab. So you can say I had 3 periods for each. I also took 6 hours of math.

 

Obviously other subjects had to give. I never had art (just had 1 semester, each year of esthetics), psychology, music or sports (just 2 hr PE) and less languages. (although still every week 4 hr Dutch, 6hr Latin, 3 French and 3 English, but never German or Spanish)

 

Dh and I are still trying to figure out how to to it this way in high school. I still think that dividing a textbook into x parts works. Or you can also cover different disciplines of biology in year x and the rest in year y.

 

Unfortunately I cannot recommend any resources that show you how to work this way. I have only heard from some high school students that they wished subjects would be taught this way in the U.S..

 

What is better? I don't know. I only know that for me (and also for dd) it would be to monotonous to study 1 science the whole year.

 

Hope this help!

[BearLair]

momofCM - yes, that does help.

 

My husband and I have been discussing this and the concurrent approach seems logical to each of us. Our degrees are in the sciences and at least one of our children is very inclined to go that way as well. I do believe a concurrent method is in our future!

 

This method of study was not an option for my husband and I until we were into our college educations. It just makes so much more sense to study sciences together rather than trying to isolate them. This is good stuff!

[Capt_Uhura]

On the 2 Million Minute DVDs, they have pdfs of the schedules in China, Japan and the US. Later today, I'll type up the schedules for the Chinese and Japanese students. They had 3 sciences concurrently.

 

My question is: if you do science this way (concurrently) do you end up doing more, less, or the same by doing it the US method? Do you end w/ more cementing of the concepts by doing it concurrently? I've read that doing it concurrently leads to more integration of the sciences...not seeing each of them as discrete subjects.

[regentrude]

My question is: if you do science this way (concurrently) do you end up doing more, less, or the same by doing it the US method? Do you end w/ more cementing of the concepts by doing it concurrently? I've read that doing it concurrently leads to more integration of the sciences...not seeing each of them as discrete subjects.

 

You can cover less, more or the same - depending on how much time you devote and in how much depth you cover the sciences.

I believe you cement the concepts better by revisiting them several times, leaving the student time to digest, ponder, process. In Germany (where sciences are taught concurrently), there is no break between "middle school" and "high school " level. Biology starts in 5th , physics in 6th, chemistry in 7th and all are taught through high school - the easier concepts in earlier years, more complex concepts and more mathy ones in later years. For example, kids study newtonain mechanics in 6th grade, then at a higher level, with more mathematics, in later years, and involving calculus in 11th/12th grade. (Just like classical education does history on several levels)

[Capt_Uhura]

My question was less about HS'd kids and more about PS'd kids. Do kids in CHina, Japan, and UK get more science studying the branches concurrently than US kids do studying one science each year?

 

Here's the schedule for the Chinese kids in 2MM. I don't know how wide-spread this is or if this schedule is representative or not.

 

9th grade: Math, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Computers, Chinese, History, Geography, English, Social Studies, Phys Ed.

10th grade: Math, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Computers, Chinese, History, Geography, English, Social Studies, Art & Music, Phys. Ed.

11th grade: Math, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Computers, Chinese, History, Geography, English, Social Studies, Art & Music, Phys. Ed.

12th grade: Math, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Computers, Chinese, History, Geography, English, Social Studies, Art & Music, Phys. Ed.

 

 

The Indian education system, as presented in 2MM, has several tracks. The following schedule is for the highest track which is High Proficient science track.

 

9th grade: Math, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Computers, World History, Geography, English, Civics, Hindi

10th grade: Math, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Computers, World History, Geograph,y English, Civics, Hindi

11th grade: Math, Chemistry, Physics, Computers, English, Environmental Education

12th grade: Math, Chemistry, Physics, Computers, English, Environmental Education

Edited July 3, 2011 by Capt_Uhura

[melmichigan]

My impression from previous discussions is that US PS students do less science overall with one science a year than integrated sciences in other countries.

[Capt_Uhura]

And then to ask about HS'd kids....how do you fit it all in if you're doing Biology, Chemistry, and Physics every year?

[elegantlion]

And then to ask about HS'd kids....how do you fit it all in if you're doing Biology, Chemistry, and Physics every year?

 

My current plan is to do approximately 1/3 of each science for 3 years. We'll do science 5x/week, so it will only take up ~1 credit hour of the schedule.

[TammyinTN]

What texts are you thinking of using for this for 9th grade.

Thanks!

[elegantlion]

What texts are you thinking of using for this for 9th grade.

Thanks!

 

Me? I still haven't fully decided. I think for biology we will use the old Dragonfly Miller/Levine book with The Way life Works. I might try to use Quarks and Quirks syllabus.

 

I have Chang Chemistry, which I *may* use. I'm reading through it now, trying to determine if it would be too much.

 

I'm also considering some British IGCSE texts. I just found this set from Cambridge. They have a coursebook, workbook, and teacher's CD for Physics and Chem. I like the idea of having it all neatly laid out, but I'm not sure if it will go into enough depth.

 

I really wish I could go somewhere and get my hands on these books. I'll probably end up ordering a few before I find the right fit.

[Ester Maria]

In Italy lycees are 5 years, and these are the programs for two types of scientific lycee ("traditional" and "applied" one) and for the classical lycee, according to the new programs from 2010, after some reforms, cuts and "standardizing" the form (many lycees were experimental and had a slightly different program before, included law and more languages and stuff and generally had much greater freedom):

 

SCIENTIFIC - TRADITINAL

Years 1-5 (all years):

Italian, Latin, Modern Foreign Language

Math (with Computer Science in the first two years), Physics, Natural sciences*

Design/drawing and Art History, History

P.E.

Elective R.E.

 

* a mix of chemistry, biology, Earth science, and astronomy

+

Geography: Years 1-2

Philosophy: Years 3-5

 

 

SCIENTIFIC - APPLIED

Years 1-5 (all years):

Italian, Modern Foreign Language, SHAMEFUL ABSENCE OF OBLIGATORY LATIN

Math, Computer Science (separately), Physics, Natural Sciences

Design/drawing and Art History

P.E.

Elective R.E.

+

History and Geography: Years 1-2

History (without Geography): Years 3-5

Philosophy: Years 3-5

 

In other words, you go applied if you are intend to sell your corrupted soul for 2-3 extra hours of computers to get away with Latin.

 

 

CLASSICAL

Years 1-5 (all years):

Italian, Latin, Greek, Modern Foreign Language

Math, Natural Sciences

P.E.

Elective R.E.

+

History and Geography: Years 1-2

History: Years 3-5

Physics: Years 3-5

Philosophy: Years 3-5

Art History: Years 3-5

 

Other types of lycees (artistic, humanities-based, linguistic, etc.) basically follow the classical lycee when it comes to program for sciences, with concurrent math and that bio/chem mix, with separate physics.

 

I prefer the German system with even more separating and organizing it earlier, so we do something like that at home, drawn from several different school systems.

[amsunshine]

I'm still not clear on whether using texts for Bio, Chem and Physics concurrently over the course of 3 years will accomplish the same amount of science education that the mentioned european and asian countries implement?

[elegantlion]

I'm still not clear on whether using texts for Bio, Chem and Physics concurrently over the course of 3 years will accomplish the same amount of science education that the mentioned european and asian countries implement?

 

In our case, probably not. I like the idea of not devoting an entire year to one science. My son would rather poke his eyes out than spend another year on biology. Just having the ability to spread that out is benefit enough for us.

 

However, I like the idea of building up difficulty level a little bit each year, being able to see the connections while the information is fresh. Our goal is not necessarily to cover MORE science, it's just to make it a little more integrated.

[TravelingChris]

I am going to be doing modified concurrent sciences. THis next year will be physics and biology. Both will be done at least 5 hours a week so 10 hours all together.

[TammyinTN]

What do your daily schedules look like..how much time for each class?

 

Thanks Paula for your response on the books your thinking of using. :001_smile: