Bio/Chem...does this make sense?

[TammyS]

My son is 13. Will be 14 in October. He has finished Saxon Alg 1 and will be starting Alg 2 this school year. I'm thinking of doing Apologia Chemistry AND Biology this year. One module per week, for a total of 32 weeks. Then doing Campbell's Biology and (probably) Tro's Chemistry next year, both for AP testing. Does that make sense, or does it sound like too much?

 

I had intended to do just Campbell's this year for AP, but with the test changes, and the increased emphasis on molecular bio it seemed like doing chem first might be a good idea, but I wasn't sure if he was ready for Tro's Chem this year....so I hatched this idea.

 

I'm not sure what we'll do after next year. I'm half hoping to be able to get him into community college for physics and calculus (concurrently), but I don't know how that will go.

 

Thanks for any feedback!

[Musicmom]

Both my dc did Apologia, though neither did both Biology and Chemistry in one year.

 

Doing both in one year may be possible... but I will warn you that a module a week is an extremely intense pace, esp if your son hasn't done Apologia before. It basically means covering/learning the material in an entire chapter in just 3-4 days, plus doing all labs in that time--which really need to be done as you encounter them in the module (i.e. you can't just save them up for the weekend, because the next section in the text will analyze the results), then you have to do the entire study guide (which is substantial, esp in Biology) and exam in a day or so. My ds did Apologia Physics and Adv Physics in one year at this rate, and it was a real challenge. It was good for him at that point in time (10th gr)--he was experienced with Apologia and definitely rose to the challenge and expanded his academic capacity a lot, but he was so pressed for time that we ended up dropping a number of the labs. I was okay with that for physics, but I think the labs in Biology and Chemistry are valuable and I would not recommend dropping them.

 

If your son has very high academic capacity--i.e. if he reads quickly and well, retains well what he reads, memorizes quickly (Biology requires tons of memorization) and is very comfortable with math, he could probably do it. You will definitely have to budget substantial time for science, though.

 

You could always start out with the intention of doing both, and if the module a week pace proves to be overwhelming, then you could drop back.

 

I guess I wouldn't recommend doing both Biology and Chemistry at the AP level in one year. That just seems like it would be way too much. My dd did AP Chem this year (online class) and it was very intense/time consuming. I can't imagine doing AP bio on top of that.

Edited July 15, 2012 by Musicmom
fixed typo

[Brenda in MA]

Tammy,

 

Trying to do both Apologia Bio & Chem in one year would have been too much for both of my sons at age 14, and trying to do two AP sciences in the same year -- impossible. In my experience, the AP sciences take 2 hr/day, 6 days/wk minimum. If your son is very academically inclined, your plan might work, but I wonder why the need to rush things?

 

I guess I wonder what is your goal in trying to get to AP Bio so soon? Is your son really interested and self-motivated to study biology? If AP Bio is the goal and he has the interested and motivation, I think I'd consider doing Chemistry this year (with Apologia, Tro, Spectrum, or something else), and then have him just take AP Bio by itself the following year. He could then take Physics at home the following year, or take Chem and/or Physics at the CC. He has the math required for Chemistry now, and that Chem background would be really helpful for AP Bio.

 

JM2Cents,

Brenda

[TammyS]

Hmmm....what's the rush? How to explain this.

 

My son is very smart. Not "gifted" exactly (at least, we've never had him tested), but very smart. And like so many smart people that I know (many in my own family) he tends towards laziness, skating by, doing the minimum. I have seen this ruin the lives of many smart people that I know and I'm terrified that he will easily end up the same way (this is part of why I don't let him go to school...here he would be lauded for his brilliance, just because he showed up and the standards are low). I want him to learn how to work hard. I also think that having the AP test coming and knowing that it could help him reduce time/money in college could be motivating for him (he was very motivated by the National Latin Exam back in March and managed a gold medal on it).

 

So, I guess the "rush" is that my plan is to graduate him in three years. Then he will have to go on to something (community college, a private college, or something), but he won't be under my direct tutelage anymore. Because my husband and I simply won't have the financial ability to do much for him with college, he's going to need to reduce his college cost as much as possible. Getting as many APs as he can is one way to do that.

 

I sat down with the Apologia chem book yesterday and it didn't really look like much to me. I couldn't really see why a module should need to take two weeks to get through. So I figured do both of the basic books this year (bio and chem). Then do both of the APs next year, which wouldn't be as hard, since there had already been intro courses.

 

It sounds like maybe I should just skip the Apologia and go straight into the AP Chem this year and AP Bio next year? Maybe the Apologia isn't worth the time?

[Melissa B]

A bit of a hijack, I don't know anything about Apologia, but why graduate him in three years? Why not do more APs the fourth year and reduce college costs even more? I know schools vary, but my kids will likely attend the local state school (UF) and they accept 45 hours of AP credit. Or will he likely already have that many AP credit hours in three years? I'm really just curious, as we are currently trying to make the decision on three or four years of high school. In FL there is a three year graduation plan in the public high schools, so it wouldn't look strange for dd to graduate in three. We are just trying to weigh the pros and cons.

[TammyS]

A bit of a hijack, I don't know anything about Apologia, but why graduate him in three years? Why not do more APs the fourth year and reduce college costs even more? I know schools vary, but my kids will likely attend the local state school (UF) and they accept 45 hours of AP credit. Or will he likely already have that many AP credit hours in three years? I'm really just curious, as we are currently trying to make the decision on three or four years of high school. In FL there is a three year graduation plan in the public high schools, so it wouldn't look strange for dd to graduate in three. We are just trying to weigh the pros and cons.

 

The why is a little bit complicated, but I will try to explain it. I don't know if you have any sons that are teens yet, but it has become apparent to me and a lot of my friends that one of the downsides of homeschooling (with *some* boys, not all) is that it just may not be the best thing for boys to be "under" their mothers for so long as they get older. I am not sure, for that matter, if keeping young people "children" for so long is even a good idea. I'm not advocating for radical pushing of the not-ready from the nest...but I do believe in a certain amount of steady pressure to be making progress towards growing up (I find the current trend of long-term adolescence revolting).

 

The plan to graduate him in three years is aimed at keeping him from stalling out through lack of motivation. Now, it might be, that in three years, he becomes more mature and wants to work hard at even more APs to reduce his cost for college and we would be happy to accomodate that. But right now, he's not motivated to do anything that isn't required, so I'm requiring him to grow up. Please don't get me wrong. He's not a "bad" kid. He loves his baby brother more than I could describe, and he's not defiant or disrespectful. He's just very passive. If I don't require something, he's not interested, and not because he lacks ability. So, I'm trying to make it as hard as possible for him to just skate by. As long as he's working and making progress, he's welcome to stay with us, he's even welcome to live at home after he graduates college to pay down college debt, but we won't let him sit around or just skate by with a minimum.

 

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[Mom22ns]

We are planning to do Apologia Chem in one semester this year with Caveman Chemistry thrown in for fun. I have the full course CD version and tried the first couple of chapters myself, doing every problem answering questions. It took me about 2 hours per chapter. I'm sure they get harder and ds wouldn't be as fast as I am, but still... I think it would be easy to do 2 Apologia courses in a year. Many people do Chem & Advanced Chem or Biology and Advanced Biology in a year. The Apologia sciences are very light.

 

However, I think doing two AP sciences in a year is way too much for most kids. For dd who wants a science related career, we will be doing two sciences/year for 3 years, but only 1 will be AP. So she will do Chemistry at the same time as AP Psychology (not really a science), Physics and AP Chem, Anatomy & Physiology w/AP Physics (or more likely Physics at CC).