Help me get creative: senior year science for my 17yo ds

[DB in NJ]

This kid is not a math/science type of guy. He is all about history and grammar and writing and reading. He could do that all day long, but science? BAH.

 

Problem is, he needs one more year of it in order to graduate. He's had Physical Science and Biology so far. He has no interest whatsoever in chemistry. His plans are to go to the community college then transfer to a 4-year college, majoring in possibly history, maybe political science.

 

The Teaching Company has some courses on sale right now (psychology, geology, etc.) that are within our budget. Would one of those do?

 

Thanks for your input!

[pianoplayer]

FWIW, my science-minded hubby says that Physics is actually more applicable to most of us than Chemistry. I do think the Teaching Company has a "Physics in Your Life" series. . . . I'm not so sure that a Teaching Company course alone qualifies for high school credit, however, if your sons studied the text along with it, perhaps wrote a research report on one aspect that interested him . . . ???

 

One of the things I have enjoyed about the Teaching Company courses is the degree to which they clearly demonstrate how these subjects ARE relevant to how we live (and I was a music major who wanted no part of math and science back then). If your son is into history and grammar and writing, have him write several significant research papers on a subject of interest--e.g., if studying astronomy, have him trace the historical understanding of our solar system through men like Ptolemy, Copernicus, etc.

 

Hope you can find just the course for your son. :)

[Chris in VA]

Mine is doing Environmental Science--having completed Bio, Astron/Physical Geog, and Chem.

 

Could he do Conceptual Physics? Not too much math, and he could supplement with a TC course.

[RebeccaC]

What about mixing history and science and doing a year or semester studying archeology? The teaching company has a series called, Classical Archaeology of Ancient Greece and Rome and they used to have a series called "An Introduction to Archaeology" by Dr. Susan Foster McCarter, Johns Hopkins University. Amazon has a few of the audio tapes of intro to for cheap and you might watch eBay for the video version.

 

Archaeology is the blending of history and science and at least in the 80s and early 90s was considered a soft science field. Anyway it is something to think about. Try doing a search at the teaching company website they have other series that come up when you search for archaeology.

[DB in NJ]

Good idea! Thanks!

[Caroline]

What about a geology/history combination? Or environmental science/politics combination?

[Guest Katia]

If he is going to attend community college, does he really need more science? Have you checked with the college?

 

I ask because my son did biology in high school, and then he went to community college and they said his high school science was terrific, and he only needed to take one lab science with them (he took physical science at cc). He was a Computer Science major.

 

Edited to add: My ds did transfer to a 4 year college from community college and didn't have to take any more science. So, just biology in homeschool and physical science in cc was all he needed. Our cc counselor said high schoolers often take more science (or whatever courses) that they don't need towards their majors, but they are unaware they don't 'need' them as most high schools require them. But, he told us as homeschoolers we don't need to have our dc take courses they don't need.

 

So, if your ds isn't all that interested in science, perhaps with the educational goals he has in mind, he may not need any more science in high school.

 

It's worth checking out. Community college has different requirements than 4 year colleges.