Mr. Q's Advanced Earth Science or Oak Meadow....opinions?

[Murrayshire]

I know the Advanced Earth Science is new but was wondering if anyone has checked it out.  Also curious to know what you think of it?

Looking at this for my 9th grader..... we are also looking at Oak Meadow's Environmental Science. Dd is having a hard time deciding.

 

http://www.eequalsmcq.com/AdvEarthChapterDwnld.htm

 

http://oakmeadow.com/courses/environmental-science/

 

[foxbridgeacademy]

I like Mr Q's TOC but I can't stand the way he writes. I find myself thinking "Dude, I'm not 5 years old".  I also don't like the Holt Earth Science book either. There's a PDF on some teacher's website that I won't link to because it's probably against copyright, but if you search "Holt Earth Science PDF" you'll most likely find it.

 

I ended up buying Tarbuck (also a partial PDF avail from a teacher's website).  The text is very interesting but there's a lot of it and the type is sooooo small. DS is dyslexic and a slow reader, small type makes it much worse.

 

 

 

 

If you're set on one of the options you mentioned above please disregard the following.

 

What we're going to do for Earth Science this year is use the 4 following books....

Science 101: Geology (Geosphere) sample

Science 101: Ocean Science (Hydrosphere) sample

Science 101: Weather (Atmosphere) sample

Science 101: Ecology (Biosphere and Athroposphere)sample 

 

I like the way they're laid out with 2 pages per sub-topic (a couple per book have 4)

I'll have DS read 2 sub-topics per night then we'll discuss or watch a video the next day.  I plan to do each book in 9 weeks with 4 labs and a test per book.  I want to also do either a paper or project for each book but that might end up too much for DS so we'll see.  I'm trying to get all of the plans into Word and if I do I'm happy to email to anyone. 

 

Also, when looking for books check out Belltower Books, I got the Ocean Science book (and many, many others) for around $.01 plus $1 shipping.

[Murrayshire]

Thank you foxbridgeacademy! I would LOVE to see a PDF of your plans when you get finished!

Thanks for the links..... I'll check them out.

[Murrayshire]

Looks like dd likes the Holt book & activities scheduled in OM syllabus.  Maybe we'll just stick to that plan.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I really like the looks of the OM syllabus. I haven't checked out the Holt book.  I agree with Foxbridge that Mr Q's writing style is better directed at young kids that teenagers (or adults!)

 

Foxbridge, that's an interesting plan, thanks for sharing.  Shannon read the Ecology book you're using last year, and I had mixed feelings about it.  I liked the nice summaries, but I worried that it was kind of randomly jumping around.  The books don't have any kind of narrative thread, they are rather encyclopedic.  I'm not criticizing your plan! Just thinking out loud.  I really liked the idea of these books but wasn't sure how I felt about them once I looked at one more closely.  I think your plan of treating each one as a unit and adding labs, tests, and a paper is a great way to pull it all together for the student. I think my problem is I was treating it more like a living book, that you read and discuss, and it isn't really that - it's kind of a hybrid between a text and an encyclopedic coverage.  I like how it was very concise and to the point, though.

 

Ok, sorry for the ramble. Thanks for posting your plan.

[foxbridgeacademy]

NP, I didn't mention, I'm reading the Tarbuck book and using it during discussion for additional info to fill out his readings. We're also watching 2-3 Documentaries every week.  The Science 101 books are more encyclopedic and he'll be doing short outlines of each topic.