High School Science Labs

[Woodland Mist Academy]

I have seen posts, if not entire threads, about this.... If someone could toss out a link or send me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it. I can see certain posts in my mind, but can't find them!

 

I'm wondering how many labs and lab reports are typical/expected. I read the thread about Arizona schools expecting proof of labs. Do other places?  Should we do fewer labs all with write-ups or lots of labs, but only a few write-ups? I'm sure the answer is probably it depends on the school..... ;)  

 

Any thoughts?

 

 

 

 

[Mom22ns]

I don't know of any other examples of colleges requiring proof of labs, however, I'm sure there is one out there somewhere. 

 

The number of labs and lab write ups you can find suggested on this board alone varies dramatically. However, the one consistent piece of advice is quality over quantity. Make sure you are doing labs with a purpose. Some may be demonstration based, but there should be some based in the scientific method and those are the ones worth doing lab reports for.

 

Personally, we have probably ranged from 15-30 labs. I rarely require full lab reports. Most labs they just do write ups that come with the curriculum - whatever that may be. 

[teachermom2834]

I just saw the other day that Kenyon College wants proof of labs from homeschoolers.  My ds has done a lot of labs at coop and Landry lab intensives but I'm not sure we did many with full write ups that we are proud of and that we have saved.  Just wasn't on my radar to save them.  I suspect the number of labs I can put my hands on that were well done and used equipment that looked like a "real" lab is probably pretty sparse.  I have actually considered recreating some if necessary. 

[Sunshine State Sue]

We used Derek Owens for HS Physics.  He includes 10 labs for the school year.  He has taught high school level physics for year and years. 

 

Ds took several CC science classes.  Labs were once a week.  The semester was 15 weeks long.  The semester course counted for a year of HS.

 

HTH!

[SilverMoon]

It's just ASU specifically that has extra science hoops for homeschoolers to jump through. The rest of Arizona isn't that fussy. :)

[MorningGlory]

I think it may also depend upon the science subject.

 

With my biology classes, we do a lot of labs...almost one a week. And no, the students do not do full write-ups; they just use the lab manual worksheets that come with the curriculum. (around 30 labs...LOTS of microscope and dissection work)

 

In chemistry last year (not teaching it this year), my students did fewer labs but wrote more. But they still used a worksheet-like report that I devised for the course. They had to do pre-lab work, too. (around 20 labs)

 

In my physics class this year, the students are doing much more complex labs that require a good bit of mathematical and graphing work. So by the end of the year, they will have done about 12 labs. And yes, they do their own lab "full" write-ups for this class. I put "full" in quotation marks because these write-ups that I require are high-school level...so they are not as complete as a college lab report, but they are still worthwhile. I am encouraging my physics students to save their lab work in a notebook...just in case.