Easiest Biology?

[jhschool]

What is the easiest Biology curriculum that would still count as a High School

credit if we went through the whole book and did all the exercises/questions?

 

I was planning on doing EZ Barron's Biology this summer, but was wondering what other

people would suggest.

 

(We just want it to be a real credit while at the same time being very quick and easy).

[SailorMom]

Truly not trying to be snarky, and I totally get what you're saying (I feel the same way about foreign language with my dyslexic son....), but first - you have t have the 180 hours in for a full credit - so quick can't really be the case, and second if it is truly easy, then it may not be a high school course - iykwim? Also - do you need a lab credit at some point? Bio labs can actually be a lot of fun.....

[CyndiLJ]

Walch's "Power Basics" Biology is simpler language but high school concepts without it being overkill for the totally non-Bio kid. Add in the biology lab from Quality Science Labs and you will be set for a nice year of solid, yet not overly rigorous biology.

[regentrude]

Truly not trying to be snarky, and I totally get what you're saying (I feel the same way about foreign language with my dyslexic son....), but first - you have t have the 180 hours in for a full credit - so quick can't really be the case, and second if it is truly easy, then it may not be a high school course - iykwim? Also - do you need a lab credit at some point? Bio labs can actually be a lot of fun.....

 

The bolded is not true.

You can award credit when a standard textbook or typical program is completed that covers the typical canon of subject content. If the student works through a typical high school biology textbook more quickly, it is still a bio credit - irrespective of whether it took 180 hours or 90.

 

You don't have to have a lab with every science class. Many colleges want to see one or two lab sciences, not four.

[SailorMom]

Really?!?!? Well - maybe the 180 is a Florida thing? Or maybe I'm just totally out of touch :)

[Julie in MN]

You can award credit when a standard textbook or typical program is completed that covers the typical canon of subject content. If the student works through a typical high school biology textbook more quickly, it is still a bio credit - irrespective of whether it took 180 hours or 90.

Really?!?!? Well - maybe the 180 is a Florida thing? Or maybe I'm just totally out of touch :)

The 180 hour thing had me stumped when I started homeschooling (which was with a high schooler). It is a very commonly quoted number.

 

My research gave me these conclusions:

 

The "credit" I think originally was standardized by the "Carnegie Unit" for the sake of colleges trying to weigh different transcripts. The Carnegie Unit is 120 hours of instruction, and typically there are also 60 hours of homework or student work done outside of actual "instruction time," i.e. 1/2 hour of assigned student reading or writing or other work per 1 hour of instruction.

 

I think the typical 36 week school year came out of that, with 180 days, for an hour per day total for instruction and assignments.

 

Then, because different students do things at different rates, you can't give one student a credit in Algebra if all she accomplished was struggling through one chapter of the textbook for 9 months, while not give another student a credit since he raced through the same textbook in one month. Therefore, textbooks and other "curriculum" tried to gear their course to the pace of the average student, or to the majority of students they worked with, in order to establish a "credit." At that point, the hours no longer matter, but finishing a standard amount of work in a standard school year equals a credit. This is especially true of standard courses like Chemistry and Algebra, which have a certain meaning in academia.

 

Of course some credits are not earned via textbook. For instance, school band may include 180 days of class plus outside activities (marching band, instruction), which makes up for the time during those 180 hours that are not instruction or student work (attendance, walking between classes, etc.). Even English courses can be all over the board, but if no standard textbook is used then typically the standard is 180 days of instruction and homework for the average student at the level named in the course (i.e. Honors English would be based on a typical honors student, while English 12 would be based on a more average student).

 

Then there are even less standard courses where the teacher just has to estimate how much time a typical student would take to do the course. If you are homeschooling, you might count actual hours your student spends, or if you feel your student is especially slow or very diligent and fast, then you might adjust even more.

 

Finally, today I've seen the total credit hours shrink to 150, 130, or 120, not usually much lower than that. Often homeschoolers go more on the lower end, due to counting actual learning time and not just time seated in a room. In Minnesota, there is no legal number of school days, so the public schools are giving credit for at most 34 weeks here, although kids earning Honors, AP, or college-in-the-school credits are doing a LOT of homework on top of that.

 

HTH,

Julie

P.S. HSLDA takes the middle ground and says 120-180 hours

http://www.hslda.org/highschool/docs/EvaluatingCredits.asp

[katilac]

SWB sez 120 for a credit, 189 for honors. I think that's pretty standard and not a change from my day (30 years ago).

 

Power Basics can be used for credit but Walch has another series that is on level but still straightforward & easy to use (daily lesson plans etc) . You might check that out. Just google Walch education.

 

[Chris in VA]

Ds is totally not science-y or mathy. Others may disagree, but he found Apologia easy. The majority of the labs were ones he had in 8th grade public school science, or even earlier. The vocab was fairly easy.

Dd is doing more with cell theory in her current 7th grade class than is covered in the whole Apologia book, and at a deeper or at least "as deep a" level.

 

Not saying everyone will find it that easy, but we did.

 

YMMV--and you have to wade thru some YE stuff, too--but for us, it was simply a matter of talking it thru.

[kiana]

The 180 hours applies to subjects where there isn't a set 'body of work', or to hours in a public school.

 

If your child completed an algebra 1 textbook with 60 hours of work, would you make them do 2 more textbooks to get their algebra credit?

[SailorMom]

You all are making me so happy and much less stressed :) I didn't even think I could count his homework as part of the 180 hours.... Granted, we still have pretty close to 180 (either slightly under or over) hours in his subjects, but I always worry too much about it.

[PeterPan]

The 180 hours applies to subjects where there isn't a set 'body of work', or to hours in a public school.

 

If your child completed an algebra 1 textbook with 60 hours of work, would you make them do 2 more textbooks to get their algebra credit?

 

Actually this isn't correct. It depends on what the university or college is looking for. If they want Carnegie UNITS, they really do mean time spent, irrespective of how many books you covered.

[elegantlion]

According to our state homeschooling guidelines, you can count a full credit at 100 hours. I know there is another thread going somewhere that discusses NARHS couting 80 as a credit. 80 is too low, imo, 100 is bare minimum to me. I don't have a child that is flying through material either.

[Pam L in Mid Tenn]

This has gotten to be a discussion of how to figure a full credit.

 

OP asked about an easy biology.

 

My opinion on biology:

I think you can take most any high school level text book and make the "assignments" easier. For example: I don't make my students memorize and write out all the vocabulary. We use Quizlet to test vocab. They still need to learn the terms and definitions but it is much easier than making them write out definitions verbatim.

 

Discussing questions and finding answers together is easier than writing out answers.

 

Just reading from the text and then reading again from another source can solidify facts. My son will prob read Mader's Essentials of Biology after finishing Apologia. He has already read several chapters to see a different viewpoint.

 

I've heard the Walch books are good and you should reserach those.