Homeschool Science with Labs? How does that work for high school?

[Slipper]

My daughter is not in high school (6th grade) but she is leaning towards a career somewhere in the science realm. (I realize she may change her mind and that's fine, but for the sake of this post, let's assume she's going into some type of research field).

 

I've read on other topics that colleges want to see science subjects with labs. How do you do that as a homeschooler? Currently, our science work include experiments, but I think you're referring to something more complex when discussing labs.

 

We are in the middle of nowhere, no library resources (not even inter-library loan) with very few homeschoolers in our area. I'm curious how I would put this together to be acceptable for college?

[regentrude]

You can either self-design your labs or purchase a complete lab kit from a company like labpaq that provides all materials, instructions, and discussion questions for the lab report.

We self designed the physics lab, using mainly common household items and focusing not on a breathtakingly complicated experimental setup, but on clean experimentation with a simple setup and a thorough data and error analysis (which is a much more important objective for a physics lab than using sophisticated equipment)

For chemistry, we used a lab kit from labpaq. I can highly recommend it; it was easy to use, with good discussion questions. We focused on writing clear lab reports.

[cbollin]

We bought  texts that have lab instructions in them.  Then bought lab supplies/kit for that series from Home Science Tools

http://www.hometrainingtools.com/science-kits-for-curriculum/c/8/

 

 

 

[G5052]

Some of my favorite memories of homeschooling have involved doing high school labs at home.  Last week we spent a whole afternoon dissecting and drawing the structures of a fetal pig for Biology.  When I was in high school, you didn't do a fetal pig until AP Biology.  There is a lot of merit to unhurried, one-on-one labs.  Locally the high schools have maybe 30 minutes for lab on the days that they do lab (and they really don't do a lot), and I can tell you that they do much, much less than we do even with the advantage of formal lab facilities and much more equipment.

 

 

[Candid]

This company has supplies very thorough labs: http://www.holscience.com/ (Used to be labpaq).

 

[Lori D.]

In addition to all the great resources for at-home lab work linked by previous posters, there are other options to look into:

 

- virtual labs online you can watch to fill in where you can't manage a lab at home

- homeschool science lab co-op

- take the science as a single class at the local high school (some schools allow partial enrollment)

- dual enrollment at the local university or community college (lab is part of the class)

- hire an instructor at the university or community college as tutor to oversee labs at the school

- possible high school student unpaid educational internship/mentoring with a university professor

 

Ideas for typical high school science labs: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy ... and google searches turn up lots more.

 

High school lab report format, and a how-to write a lab report plus a grading rubric.

[tvaleri]

We've used Exploration Education for Physical Science which has over 30 lab/projects in it.

Co-op for Biology labs (momma doesn't dissect anything =)

This coming year, I'll be helping facilitate chemistry labs using a standard micro-chem kit at qualitysciencelabs dot com.

 

May I suggest your student write up lab reports or keep a lab notebook.

 

HTH.

Teresa