A home for their hearts Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 Is there a biology course that doesn't have labs? If so, can this count as a high school credit? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Girls' Mom Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 You can choose to do the labs or not with most courses without missing content. That said, if they are looking at going to college, colleges do expect to see a few lab sciences. With my oldest, she did about 1/4 of the labs with her bio course and just read the rest. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angie in VA Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 Do you mean no labs at all? I'm sure there's a Charlotte Mason approach that has no labs. Something like this. Or this. And don't forget to check out Guest Hollow for some great books. There are virtual labs, which according to froguts.com must be accepted in several states. (Scroll down.) Of course, I'd check my state's requirements to verify this. Not what you asked at all, but I can't not say it: if college is in the future for your child, some schools require lab science regardless of what the state's laws say for high school requirements. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 Not what you asked at all, but I can't not say it: if college is in the future for your child, some schools require lab science regardless of what the state's laws say for high school requirements. Colleges do require lab sciences, and some colleges require biology explicitly, but I have not come across any college that specified that one of the lab courses had to be biology with lab. My DD got accepted into top tier schools with a biology course that had no labs - she had four lab science credits in chemistry and various physics courses. To the OP: you can take any standard biology text and just don't add any labs. We have done Campbell Concepts&Connections with DD and are doing Campbell Exploring Life with DS. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G5052 Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 Yes, we did labs with each science class just to make sure the college admissions requirements were covered. Most of the more selective schools wanted at least three lab sciences. As it ended up, my oldest chose to go locally to the community college where it really wasn't an issue, but I'm glad we did a rigorous, college-prep transcript. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom22ns Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 Most Biology courses can be done without labs, however, I would caution that some of the homeschool Biology courses do include material only presented during the labs on tests. DIVE is an example of this. The labs are included on the DVD in the form of narrated still pictures. The information and calculations done in a lab may be on the test and your student may miss test questions if they don't watch the labs. However, watching is enough for the tests. Not enough to count it as a lab science IMO but enough for the tests none the less. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 DD has just begun Biology 1. The course uses a CD for Virtual Labs. That is cool, because a student can repeat the labs, over and over, if they want to or need to. I believe this is the last school year they will use that course, because I know they are working on a new Biology course. GL with whatever you go with! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandra Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 Could I ask why no labs for this particular science? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngieW in Texas Posted October 3, 2015 Share Posted October 3, 2015 Paper labs are a possibility. I have the 2006 edition of Holt Biology (with the polar bear on the cover) and it has a lot of paper labs. You can do those instead of regular labs. The paper labs are labs where you are given the data and just need to analyze it. There are a lot of easy labs you can do for biology that do not in any way come close to dissection. It is very very possible to do full labs for biology without doing any dissections at all. I'm referring specifically to dissections because that is the part of biology lab that I generally find people objecting to. You can do a full lab course without doing any dissections at all, even virtually. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SailorMom Posted October 5, 2015 Share Posted October 5, 2015 Also - keep in mind it is the lab processes, the scientific processes behind the labs, that are more important than the labs themselves. Well - to a point of course :) I would keep a lab component (of come kind - with or without dissections) in any high school science class if possible - not just for college admissions, but for the 'real' science behind them. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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