Kendall Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 My son did a great job reading, learning, testing, discussing Science Shepherd Biology this year. He liked it and often shares things he has learned. Including with much younger siblings who were really looking for a much simpler answer to their questions. So it has been a good biology year. We intended to make some time for 3 weeks of Biology labs at the end of the year, but we have 8 days left and he is doing the last of the text today. I have a science project for the summer that he will either do or do with a few siblings but it isn't Biology based. A few summers ago a science teacher friend did labs with all my kids. They extracted DNA from strawberries, did stuff with pond water, and I'm not sure what else that was biology based. They did chem and physics based things, too. I thought I would have my son do virtual dissections while I figure out what else to do. There weren't any Landry Biology intensives close enough this year or I would have done that. Next year we are doing the Chem labs intensive. So if you only had time for 6 or so days of labs what would you do? Do you have a website recommendation? List of the top 10 essential labs? Is there anything worth doing without a microscope? Are there microscope virtual labs online? Thanks in advance, Kendall Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starr Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 If Landry has Bio labs next year I would wait and have him do them then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kendall Posted May 21, 2013 Author Share Posted May 21, 2013 Yes, the landry biology intensives would be a good idea. It looks like this website might answer some of my questions. http://www.biologyjunction.com/virtual_labs.htm Sorry to take up board space with my poor planning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewelma Posted May 22, 2013 Share Posted May 22, 2013 I have recently found this website: http://www.biologycorner.com/lesson-plans/ecology/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Candid Posted May 22, 2013 Share Posted May 22, 2013 You could easily do all the labs you would need to do in a day or two. Mine put off a batch of dissections, and he was done doing them by noon. So I'm fairly confident that if you have a kit or get a kit they could be done at home rapidly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted May 23, 2013 Share Posted May 23, 2013 That's plenty of time to do biology labs. I personally would prefer to do 2-3 a day over a week instead of something like Landry Intensives, just b/c that strikes me as 'cramming' and I don't see how most kids can remember/retain much from so many labs done so quickly. Virtual dissections are fine - dissections in general are really a holdover from when bio was much more anatomy based. It has changed a LOT in the 30 years since I took it, lol. I would only worry about actual dissections with kids who have very particular interests (and even then, I don't think that a dissection done in 9th grade is going to make a huge difference to their college bio success in 4 or 5 years). There are plenty of virtual microscopes online; for example http://www.udel.edu/biology/ketcham/microscope/scope.html they are helpful for learning terminology and basic usage, and just as good imo for looking at samples (because most people and even schools have crap microscopes anyway). The main thing you will miss is physically prepping slides. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kendall Posted May 23, 2013 Author Share Posted May 23, 2013 Thank you all, you have been so encouraging and given us some great resources. He is starting on this today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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