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High School Science: Apologia v.s. Bob Jones


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I'm trying to decide what science program to go with for my 9th and 10th graders this coming school year.  We prefer something that is a more rigorous curriculum.  We're currently using Bob Jones, but I'm just not sure that the high school science courses are a good fit for us in Bob Jones.  We loved the elementary/Jr. high courses.  So we're checking out Apologia.  Obviously we all know that curriculum is very expensive, so I would hate to waste our science money on Apologia if it's not that great.....so, tell me, if you like Apologia and why.  And if you've tried both Bob Jones and Apologia, which did you like better?  Thanks!!!!

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Have you looked at Dive Science? They are solid courses with a choice of textbooks, except for Physics. He uses only Saxon for it. You can view the courses at the link. To view the options on textbooks, you have to go to the Support tab, choose syllabi, choose science, and choose the format and subject. You'll have full course instructions including the syllabi for several textbook options including reading material only online. You could still use your BJU textbooks but with a different approach. 

 

 

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Apologia does not have the rigor of Bob Jones.

 

That's kind of what we were afraid of.  We definitely want something challenging and rigorous.

 

Have you looked at Dive Science? They are solid courses with a choice of textbooks, except for Physics. He uses only Saxon for it. You can view the courses at the link. To view the options on textbooks, you have to go to the Support tab, choose syllabi, choose science, and choose the format and subject. You'll have full course instructions including the syllabi for several textbook options including reading material only online. You could still use your BJU textbooks but with a different approach. 

 

I haven't heard of this before, but it does look interesting.  I'm definitely going to take a look at this one. Thanks.

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Apologia may not have the rigor, and dd hasn't taken a college science class yet. She did DIVE ICP, Apologia Biology, and Apologia Chemistry and scored a 35 on the science section of the ACT. She's a good test taker, and she has great critical thinking and logic skills. I believe developing those thinking skills to be just as important, if not more so, than the content. They are going to get it all again in college and being able think, study, and apply what they learn will be most valuable, IMHO. 

 

 

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Apologia is also more "rambling," at least in the editions we used.  Mine prefer BJUP because it is more concise while going generally deeper than Apologia, although if you use both levels in each, they cover about the same material.

 

We use DIVE for all but physics.  His tests are quarterly and cover the material in a way that I prefer. The BJUP tests go down to way more detail than I want.  We also do a mixture of his video labs and at-home labs. Today is at-home fetal big day (I'm excited, DD is NOT).

 

I don't like Saxon Physics at all, so we don't use DIVE for that.  That's the only textbook option he has for that course.  My oldest is doing a homemade version with Hewitt's college version of Conceptual Physics.  I haven't decided yet what #2 will do.

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We used BJU Bio with DIVE for the same reasons others have mentioned - the tests are not so detailed but it still covers a great deal of information.

 

The big reason I would not use Apologia, besides that fact that my children found the Earth and PS texts preachy and rambly, is that they leave the human body out. We didn't have two years to cover Bio!

 

Next year my youngest will be doing Bio with DIVE and a Holt text by Nowicki, as we want to see both sides of the evolution debate.

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I think part of the difference is also how you plan to use it.  If you are just going to hand science to them and have them do it independently, from what I gather then Apologia is going to be a better choice.  I could definitely be wrong, but I thought I remembered seeing somewhere that BJU is pretty teacher intensive.

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We use DIVE for all but physics.  His tests are quarterly and cover the material in a way that I prefer. The BJUP tests go down to way more detail than I want.  We also do a mixture of his video labs and at-home labs. Today is at-home fetal big day (I'm excited, DD is NOT).

 

I don't like Saxon Physics at all, so we don't use DIVE for that.  That's the only textbook option he has for that course.  My oldest is doing a homemade version with Hewitt's college version of Conceptual Physics.  I haven't decided yet what #2 will do.

 

Exactly. 

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