SparklyUnicorn Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 I couldn't find the other thread regarding this. I know a few said something about labs taking hours to complete/set up, etc. I just wonder how typical it is for high schoolers to do labs like that. When I was in school we didn't have more time to do labs than could be squeezed into a regular class period. So hours? Not possible. Even here it's no different. The only thing we stretched out was dissections in a & p. But those could be kept aside and revisited over a long period. I wonder what is the norm or typical for high schools. Probably it varies. Wish I could find some sort of guideline in terms of what is typical/expected. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erica in OR Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 In teaching physics and chemistry at the high school level, most labs fit into a 50-minute period, with some being broken up into two class periods. However, that was just set up and data collection, not calculations and analysis, which at home I'd probably consider part of a lab. Erica in OR 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loesje22000 Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 I come from a different schoolsystem but for chemistry we had seperate 'labhours' and 'classhours' Labs were only possible at labhours as we were in the Lab that moment. instruction could be given during both type of hours. lab hours were always a block of 2 schoolhours so 100 minutes. We didn't always need all the labtime for the lab. But I remember 'titreren' (drop by drop mixing 2 solutions until the reaction happened) was very time consuming, especially whan you had to start over again, and so was the lesson 'making soap from butter' I think we had the same system for Physics, but we had less labs, and less timeconsuming labs. Practicums for biology and geography ( earthscience) were often put to gether in one day or one afternoon, as we had to go outside for that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted March 9, 2015 Author Share Posted March 9, 2015 I come from a different schoolsystem but for chemistry we had seperate 'labhours' and 'classhours' Labs were only possible at labhours as we were in the Lab that moment. instruction could be given during both type of hours. lab hours were always a block of 2 schoolhours so 100 minutes. We didn't always need all the labtime for the lab. But I remember 'titreren' (drop by drop mixing 2 solutions until the reaction happened) was very time consuming, especially whan you had to start over again, and so was the lesson 'making soap from butter' I think we had the same system for Physics, but we had less labs, and less timeconsuming labs. Practicums for biology and geography ( earthscience) were often put to gether in one day or one afternoon, as we had to go outside for that. We did have a lab day too, but it was not more time than the regular class time. Even in college the lab wasn't longer for non majors. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckymama Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 My older two did labs in double periods at their high schools. The school schedules rotated between either six or seven different "days" with one day in the rotation having a double period for each subject (not just sciences). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom22ns Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 Most of the schools around me (although not all) use block scheduling and all classes are taught in 2 hour blocks (actually 100 minutes or something), not 50 min blocks. There are 4 classes/day. I have no idea how many labs they do or if they spend 2 hours on a lab, but longer labs certainly are an option. In college, all my science classes had 2 hour labs, even the non-majors level intro sciences at the CC. Our labs can typically be done in an hour not including write up, although we sometimes do 2 at a time and sometimes something goes wrong and it takes longer. My goal is always to give my kids the best education and the best preparation possible, not to match the public schools, for good or bad. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted March 9, 2015 Author Share Posted March 9, 2015 The longer lab periods definitely seem ideal. I recall we had very little time to do the actual labs. So they had to be very quick most of the time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joules Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 One difference is that in high school labs much of the set-up is done by the teacher or student aid ahead of time. When the students walk in the door things are ready to roll. This was the only way I could get through teaching labs in our short periods. At home, usually the parent (or usually the student in high school) is doing all of that work, and I've found that adds significantly to how much time a home lab takes. (Never mind the time clearing the breakfast dishes and making sure all of the edibles are far from the chemical workspace and then the time cleaning to make surfaces food safe again!) 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G5052 Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 One option is to do some of the labs on a different day or time. I have several friends whose husbands helped with the science labs on the weekends. I've done that in the summer too. We did six extensive physics labs with my oldest last summer while I was available to help with layout and data analysis, and I'm going to do most of the chemistry labs with my youngest this summer. Then they do the easier ones themselves. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 At the boys' school, they have double classes at least once a week for each science, so that would be a ninety minute class in total. They use those for practicals. I think that it used to be a one hundred and ten minute class when I was at school. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dicentra Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 But I remember 'titreren' (drop by drop mixing 2 solutions until the reaction happened) was very time consuming, especially whan you had to start over again, and so was the lesson 'making soap from butter' I love that I now know the Dutch word for titration. :) Thank you, loesje! :) When I was teaching at the high school, we were on a semester system so classes were 75 minutes long every day. A full course would be covered in one semester (5 months). I admit - I appreciated having a longer time to do labs. I have friends that teach in different places and they said it's tough to run meaningful labs in a 45 or 50 minute class period. Even with a 75 minute period, I would still run a few labs that took two days. One of them was, in fact, a titration lab. :) The trick is in knowing where a good break point occurs in the lab and in knowing how much a typical high school class can get done in whatever your given length of time is. Those would come from teaching experience. That said, I would think a lone homeschooled high school student could get more done than a high school class could in an equivalent amount of time. A typical high school class is very... distractable. :D In terms of a general standard for lab time/high school science course, I think it would depend on the kinds of labs that you choose to do. I could take the same high school chem course and design it one way with a lab (or even two) per chapter of the text but they would be short, simple labs that required very little equipment or set-up. The same course content could also be taken and paired with a lab component that might only have 10 or so labs throughout the entire course but each lab would cover a variety of topics. The coverage would be deeper, the set up and procedures would be more complicated, and the analysis would be more in depth. I always preferred to have both kinds of labs when I taught either the Grade 11 or the Grade 12 chem. For AP chem, they focus more on the longer, in depth type of labs. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loesje22000 Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 One difference is that in high school labs much of the set-up is done by the teacher or student aid ahead of time. When the students walk in the door things are ready to roll. This was the only way I could get through teaching labs in our short periods. At home, usually the parent (or usually the student in high school) is doing all of that work, and I've found that adds significantly to how much time a home lab takes. (Never mind the time clearing the breakfast dishes and making sure all of the edibles are far from the chemical workspace and then the time cleaning to make surfaces food safe again!) That might be a difference, we had to do everything by ourselves in Highschool. Only demonstrations were set up by the teacher and her aid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loesje22000 Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 I love that I now know the Dutch word for titration. :) Thank you, loesje! :). You're welcome, and thanks for bringing up the English word, I couldn't remember it anymore... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Occasionally Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 My older two did labs in double periods at their high schools. The school schedules rotated between either six or seven different "days" with one day in the rotation having a double period for each subject (not just sciences). When I taught high school chemistry, this is what several local school districts did. Every sixth day would be a double period, and we could fit quite a bit into that time period. I would have to have equipment out but I would not set it up unless the lab was very long. Writeups (pre- and post-lab) would happen outside of class. In college, lab classes were separate from lecture classes, and far longer (I seem to remember four-hour labs, but I'm not positive about that.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emzhengjiu Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 One of my daughter's friends was complaining that she has a single ten page physics lab report due each semester in her public high school. I was surprised that she only had to write one. She's in a Math, Science, Technology magnet program. I remember writing many lab reports when I was in high school. But my daughters remind me that I also remember having to walk miles to school through snow and ice. Not really, but they're sure I'm exaggerating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 That might be a difference, we had to do everything by ourselves in Highschool. Only demonstrations were set up by the teacher and her aid. We had to do everything too including getting equipment from the lab benches lining the sides of the lab. The teacher has no aide though in high school. I was on a math, science heavy track for 11th-12th grade. Lab was 3 hrs per week 1:30pm-4:30pm for each science. Writeup was usually hand in at end of lab class. Tutorial was 1.5hrs twice a week to class size of max 30. Lectures were 1.5hrs twice a week to a class size bigger than 300. More than well prepared for the university system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dicentra Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 In college, lab classes were separate from lecture classes, and far longer (I seem to remember four-hour labs, but I'm not positive about that.) All of my university chem, physics, and bio labs were 3 hour labs once per week with the exception of analytical chem, which was 4 hours, so you're probably remembering correctly. :) Those 3 (or 4) hours were for the lab work only, not for any pre-lab questions or for doing the post-lab write up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.