mom2bee Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 What are your options if you want to cover a good scope of Science, but not necessarily Biology, Chemistry, Physics etc... I guess I'm asking about an integrated approach to teaching science at the upper level? I don't know why, but I have always disliked the way the subjects were kind of forced apart into different subjects. And almost violently kept apart... I understand that its kind of necessary (or at least I trust others who say that it is.) But is there anything out there that also presents a nice over view of the big picture, inter-connectedness of sciences such as Chemistry, Biology, and Physics, Earth Science etc... Is there a curriculum or a series of books out there that sort of approach them as one? I hope that I'm not being very hard to understand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 No, you make perfect sense! I have seen this discussed here before - maybe try a search for Integrated Science. I have a text by Trefil & Hazen called The Sciences: An Integrated Approach. It's a college-level introductory text that covers physics, astronomy, earth science, chemistry, and biology. I've been thinking about how this would look as the backbone of a multi-year integrated science class. There is also an integrated science text by Hewitt et al, of conceptual physics fame, and another by Tillery. I've not seen them in person. I would love to hear from someone who has btdt with integrated science for high school! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nscribe Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 Integrated Science by Trefil and Hazen. The Joy of Science TC course is taught by Hazen and goes nicely with the book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom2bee Posted March 11, 2013 Author Share Posted March 11, 2013 There is also an integrated science text by Hewitt et al, of conceptual physics fame, Does anyone know if THIS is the text that she is referring too. I happen to have this book in my house, though it isn't mine. I must admit that I covet the book...I have been asked not to mess with it until my sister is done with the class that requires the book.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 No, you make perfect sense! I have seen this discussed here before - maybe try a search for Integrated Science. I have a text by Trefil & Hazen called The Sciences: An Integrated Approach. It's a college-level introductory text that covers physics, astronomy, earth science, chemistry, and biology. I've been thinking about how this would look as the backbone of a multi-year integrated science class. There is also an integrated science text by Hewitt et al, of conceptual physics fame, and another by Tillery. I've not seen them in person. I would love to hear from someone who has btdt with integrated science for high school! I have this book and like it. However, I don't think it goes deep enough into the topics to consider it enough alone. My original plan was to do an integrated science over 3 years, but I found myself scrambling with this text. We wanted to focus on physics first, which this text does (it is integrated but the chapters are divided enough). It didn't work well for us because I felt like we were spending too much time with that text then the real information had to be pulled from elsewhere. So I felt like we were doing two science books. It felt chaotic. It could work, but it didn't seem ideal to me. What would have been nice is to simply go through the above text in 8th grade, touching on the topics in a general way. It's certainly readable enough for an average 8th grader. I do like their adult level book called Science Matters. I did find a few other integrated texts, but none really worked well for us, so we moved to studying physics only this year. I did like the look of these India based texts from NCERT. Their science is integrated, you can see the flow if you download the books from grade 7 and up. http://www.notemonk.com/ncert/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 I have this book and like it. However, I don't think it goes deep enough into the topics to consider it enough alone. My original plan was to do an integrated science over 3 years, but I found myself scrambling with this text. We wanted to focus on physics first, which this text does (it is integrated but the chapters are divided enough). It didn't work well for us because I felt like we were spending too much time with that text then the real information had to be pulled from elsewhere. So I felt like we were doing two science books. It felt chaotic. It could work, but it didn't seem ideal to me. What would have been nice is to simply go through the above text in 8th grade, touching on the topics in a general way. It's certainly readable enough for an average 8th grader. I do like their adult level book called Science Matters. I did find a few other integrated texts, but none really worked well for us, so we moved to studying physics only this year. I did like the look of these India based texts from NCERT. Their science is integrated, you can see the flow if you download the books from grade 7 and up. http://www.notemonk.com/ncert/ Ah, thank you! This is exactly the kind of btdt feedback I was hoping for, and hopefully it is useful for the OP as well! ;) I can see exactly what you mean. When I think about how to pull off integrated science, but then think that I actually need to do labs in Physics, Chemistry, and Biology as well, so then I need the resources for the labs too, on top of the text . . . .and maybe more in-depth reading to cover the labs . . . yeah, I see how you could start chasing your tail with that. And the bolded is exactly what I've been thinking of doing in 8th grade. So that may be the answer: an integrated science overview year for 8th, before diving into the more separate subjects in high school. I just got Bloomfield's How Things Work - like just this minute - and I'm doing the Coursera class. That book and the course, plus labs, could be a great Conceptual Physics class for 9th grade, no? (sorry, now that is off topic :leaving: ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 Does anyone know if THISis the text that she is referring too. I happen to have this book in my house, though it isn't mine. I must admit that I covet the book...I have been asked not to mess with it until my sister is done with the class that requires the book.... Nope, it's this one: http://www.amazon.com/Conceptual-Integrated-Science-Paul-Hewitt/dp/0805390383/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363034687&sr=1-4&keywords=integrated+science Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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