need help with biology labs

[whiskeywife]

My DS is going to be using Miller/Levine Biology book and we are going to be roughly following the kolbe syllabus. I'm lost on the lab component though. I'd rather not buy a lab kit or lab-in-a-box type thing. I'd like to be able to customize our labs.

 

First- where do I get the lab ideas from? I know there are some in his bio book but where can I find others if we don't want to do those particular ones?

 

Second- Do you have your child do a formal lab report for every lab or just certain ones?

 

Third- I've heard of a "lab notebook" where they keep rough sketches/ideas. What does that "look" like per se?

 

Fourth- How many labs should he do throughout the year? One a week? One a month?

 

I've always loved biology so I don't know why I'm having such a hard time with this. I guess I'm just afraid I'm going to miss something and DS will be shortchanged, kwim?

 

Any other advice will be greatly appreciated:).

[magistrasan]

I have taught small groups of biology students over the years - and I have generally never done more than one lab every other week. When you have just one student - that will be a lot.

 

Some good biology labs that were used for the previous AP biology test were online - and could be done "virtually". You can find one set here: http://www.phschool.com/science/biology_place/labbench/

 

Another set here from UC Open Access: http://www.ucopenaccess.org/course/view.php?id=13

 

However, if you have time, doing a "real" lab is more fun. Miller-Levine has a laboratory manual to correlate with the textbook. I have found lots of materials/resources for labs at http://www.hometrainingtools.com . They are very reasonable for one or a small group of students.

[mom4peace]

Here's what we did a few years back: HS Biology. I used some labs from Biology Inquiry (see link in syllabus) and used some I found on the web. If you have questions or find broken links, please let me know.

 

Sarah

[Terri NS]

Thanks for the links- sad but I'm still working on our biology lab plans for this year. Mom4peace I'm liking the look of the look of Biology Inquiries.

[jessicalb]

Here's what we did a few years back: HS Biology. I used some labs from Biology Inquiry (see link in syllabus) and used some I found on the web. If you have questions or find broken links, please let me know.

 

Sarah

 

I used that link and that book as a starting point for building our upcoming Biology year. I also searched the web for some alternative labs and other items. Pretty much the web is an incredible resource for labs that are already set up and ready to go, and the Inquiry book is a great resource for labs that teach them how the scientific method really works and helps them learn to really think scientifically.

[Mom22ns]

You might look at the Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments. It is available as a free download in pdf here.

[jpklehm]

:bigear:

 

Great information...thank you!

[Matryoshka]

You might look at the Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments. It is available as a free download in pdf here.

 

:iagree: I believe there is also a document somewhere that aligns the experiments with Miller/Levine. I know I've seen it mentioned here...

[Candid]

I'm lazy and I bought a kit of experiments the last two years. This year is from labpaq. The balance is having something ready to roll vs. cost.

[ilanao]

We used the Quality Science Labs kits with our Holt Biology book. http://www.qualitysciencelabs.com/biology-labs/qsl-biology-lab-kit/. It comes with a lab book that you can write in. I found that it was worth watching videos on YouTube first before doing the dissections. Watching is much more informative than the book pictures, and the person explains things that aren't in the lab book. We watched MacOrganisms2 videos, but there are many others to choose from.