Highschool lab experience

[Jadde32]

I am not at the highschool level yet but I am inquiring to see how you all provide science laboratory experience for your high school students as this is required for entry into most colleges. Two sciences with lab is required. I know some people buy kits but I would want my child to be in a real laboratory with other students. Can anyone share how they have done this or are doing?

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Matryoshka]

I am totally wimping out and just having them take the classes at the CC...

 

Older dd tried AP Bio online, but it did not engage her, even though she loves Bio.  The next year she took Physics at the CC and that went so much better.  I am contemplating having younger dd do Derek Owens for Physics, but I'm still worried about the labs.  She's doing Zoology and Chem at the CC first.  Physics may end up there too.

Edited March 24, 2016 by Matryoshka

[mom31257]

I taught a lab class for two of my dd's sciences. One was at a co-op, and the other was here at my house. We used simple equipment, often just things around the house. I freaked out when dd suddenly announced she wanted to major in nursing. This is the girl who said nothing medical or science for her future. I was so worried that she wouldn't be prepared for college science. She took chemistry the first semester and had a 97 average. She actually said she was better prepared than her classmates who had been in public school. She said mainly they didn't know how to think. 

 

 

[cbollin]

I feel like the oddball. We did our science labs at home. Glean from this what you can. ignore the rest.

 

My phd chemist husband still insists that our kitchen is a "real laboratory" at high school and under levels.  We have a sink for eye wash.  A shower is in the bathroom if needed.  aprons for lab work.  safety goggles were in the "kits" that we bought.  They wear shoes in lab.  We clean up.  We're using amounts and strengths of chemicals that are generally regarded as household use.  And for physics we use stuff for home use.  Biology: we bought a microscope.

 

We bought a "kit" of lab equipment that was designed to go with the text we picked.  Hubby didn't do much to help with science class as he works full time. (There were a few times that I asked him to help them with homework, but for the most part,  I was the lab partner.) Usually I was the lab partner who was lazy so my children did the work.  I'm also the "dumb one" in my family and don't have advanced degrees in sciences.   Our oldest is double major electrical engineering/computer science.  She ended up fine in college with required physics and chemistry classes.   She knew that when it came time to write lab reports that you follow the template from the professor.  She knew that there'd be a "lazy partner" in some class and she'd have to deal with it.  She got all A's so far going into 4th semester.

 

I realize that's not the kind of answer you were looking for.   I know in my area co-ops and group schools for science are very popular and people pay about 400-500 a year for someone to lead the class once a week and do labs and send them home with homework.  Maybe there is stuff like that in your area.

 

 

 

(edit to define kit:  in this context, it simply means a pre bundled box of real lab equipment from a science supply store instead of purchasing each item ala carte. It does not mean discount retail christmas toy)

Edited March 24, 2016 by cbollin

[Julie of KY]

I teach chemistry lab to a small group out of my garage (Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments) and I teach biology and physics on my own at home.

 

Edited March 24, 2016 by Julie of KY

[angela in ohio]

We did some at home and some at the CC. I prefer the CC because a large part of lab work is working with others.

[OlgaLA]

After doing a few experiments at home in middle school, I am sending her to CC. I am not confident at all in my ability to provide adequate lab experience for her.

[Reefgazer]

I have a graduate science degree and teach at a community college, and we are doing labs at home because I know that I can provide at least the equivalent (and usually more robust) lab experience than most schools.  But if you are adamant about having other students as lab partners, many private schools will let you buy a class on a per class cost basis.  Other options are dual enrollment at a local college, teaching the class and inviting other homeschooled students, or taking a co-op class.

Edited March 24, 2016 by reefgazer

[SparklyUnicorn]

I have a graduate science degree and teach at a community college, and we are doing labs at home because I know that I can provide at least the equivalent (and usually more robust) lab experience than most schools.  But if you are adamant about having other students as lab partners, many private schools will let you buy a class on a per class cost basis.  Other options are dual enrollment at a local college, teaching the class and inviting other homeschooled students, or taking a co-op class.

 

oh good...now I know who to bug with questions!

[ladyinthegarden]

Cbollin you're my kind of gal. ;)

 

I have the kind of kid that I spend most of my time trying to figure out what he doesn't know. For high school science I've decided to use the DIVE program coupled with a few courses from The Great Courses. I plan to be the lazy science partner too! :)

[Jadde32]

It is very valuable to provide a real lab experience to highschool students for the sciences. I think what I am going to do is dual enroll and send her to a community college to do her sciences with lab. I think I would be selling her short by buying kits and doing it at home plus I am no expert. I rather her get taught by an expert in the field. If I tried to do this I would not be fair to her. I have to find her a better alternative. I enjoyed working in laboratories with other students. There are alot of highschool classes I do not think I would like to tackle I am considering sending my kid to a private highschool or good public highschool because I want her to have memorable experiences outside of my home and kitchen.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edited March 24, 2016 by Jadde32

[FriedClams]

We do some at home. BJU bio - student watched labs online, did all the microscope work at home, did many directions at home, and attended Landry Intensive (which was excellent!) for bio. Chem is being done at a coop. Physics will be at home and we'll do the labs at home again. I think doing them is very important.

[Liza Q]

many private schools will let you buy a class on a per class cost basis.  Other options are dual enrollment at a local college, teaching the class and inviting other homeschooled students, or taking a co-op class.

 

With on daughter, we had a good experience with a local Christian school for Biology and Chemistry labs. They charged us a nominal fee ($100.) and she had to get a uniform, but my daughter went over to the school every Wednesday afternoon at 2ish when all the kids did labs. My others didn't want to be bothered, so we have done labs at home with varying success. The other options reefgazer mentioned are also very doable.

 

[cbollin]

Cbollin you're my kind of gal. ;)

 

I have the kind of kid that I spend most of my time trying to figure out what he doesn't know. For high school science I've decided to use the DIVE program coupled with a few courses from The Great Courses. I plan to be the lazy science partner too! :)

 

 

fun memories:

I remember last year (dd's college freshman year) that she had a class where there was a lazy person or two.  In that class, you didn't have the same lab group each week. As part of the lab grade, students graded each other on participation.  So it quickly got around if you wanted to get the lab done that week there were people to avoid in class.   And she and another guy in the class became the go to people when other groups were stuck.

 

and for biology dissections?  ok.. I wimped on that.  She wimped on that.  Dad had to rescue us on that.  But, my daughter never has to take biology for her degree.  So it all worked out.  we only did worm, crayfish and perch.   I gave the frog away to someone who really wanted to do it. 

 

 

anyway.. .dd is off to a engineering conference next week.  She and her group are in some competition with some robot thing.  but turns out the group leader has mono and the project isn't as ready as they hoped. hmm.. 

but when I tell her about threads like this she tends to tell me that if people live near a university that does outreach programs for STEM, to try and attend those one day fun things.  As a college student she enjoys being part of those events and sharing with high schoolers.   If possible, try to make some of those events if you have them. (that's just input from my dd who was homeschooled the whole way and is woman in STEM major.)

 

 

original poster:  hoping you find a best fit outside course for your needs.   Up the thread someone mentioned Landry academy.  They have lab intensive "camps" around the country.  Maybe one is near you for that group experience.   In my area plenty of people get nervous about high school at home and do all kinds of outsource options to fit their needs. Hoping you find an outsource option that is available.

[Carrie12345]

Multi-pronged approach, here.

I'm investing in the best home equipment I can afford, knowing we have 3 other students to use it eventually.

Our co-op is running a lab course this year.  Hopefully it will work with dd's schedule, and hopefully it will be repeated in future years.

Our cc is nearby for future use.

My kids are more geared toward environmental sciences and have many opportunities to do field work with environmental educators.  

[Eliz]

We're doing a combination of some labs at home, community college and Landry Academy intensives. My daughters completed the biology intensive and loved it. This summer my younger daughter will be doing the chemistry intensive. My older daughter took chemistry as a dual credit student.

 

edited: spelling

Edited March 24, 2016 by Eliz

[happypamama]

We are going to do biology labs at home next year, maybe teaming up with friends occasionally. Not sure about chemistry yet. Might try chemistry 1 at home. Might go to a CC for a second year of bio or chemistry. No idea about physics yet. There's a local college that offers homeschool science classes once a month or so, and we could do dissection there if we don't want to do it at home.

[Mom22ns]

I'll cast another vote for well done labs at home. I too have a science degree and my kids did a lot more labs and better labs than I ever dreamed of in high school. It is true they didn't get to work with a group much. Sometimes I put them together for a lab, other times I was their lab partner and other times they worked alone. Some of our Chemistry labs had to be done outside due to fumes, some we did in the garage with the garage door open. Dd loved dissections and we did a ton including a cat in Anatomy this year. With ds we did virtual dissections. I think the only actual dissections he did were in Life Science in 7th grade: a worm and a frog.

 

My basement has a set of shelves with all our lab equipment. There are small high schools that would be jealous! That said, when dd started Biology at the CC this semester, one of her first comments was that she'd never seen so many test tubes. They needed 10 each for the lab, 20 students in the class and apparently the instructor brought out a huge box that must have had 500 test tubes because she said it was still over half full when they had all gotten theirs. We had 10 lol.

[SkateLeft]

Personally, I don't think it's totally necessary for kids to learn to work with others during science labs when they're in high school. Doing quality lab work at home can let the kid focus on the concepts without all the cooperative elements. My kids learned to work with others in a variety of other circumstances, and that translated easily into working with others in college labs. Considering that my oldest had a couple of semesters where she complained that her lab partners were absolutely useless and she had to do all the work anyway, it was a good thing she learned to do it on her own.

 

My oldest did biology labs at home with me, then dual enrolled for chemistry and physics. #2 has done biology, chemistry and physics labs at home. She also dual enrolled for one semester of general chem. #3 is doing biology labs at home this year, and will do chemistry at home next year, then probably dual enroll for physics.

[Reefgazer]

This is what I did; I spent a good wad of cash of science equipment, knowing more than one kid will use it and then I can resell it to the homeschool store.  I don't think people are aware of how trivial, low-tech and underfunded some high school and college labs really are.  My biology labs by far exceed what my Bio 101 students do in structure.

Multi-pronged approach, here.

I'm investing in the best home equipment I can afford, knowing we have 3 other students to use it eventually.

Our co-op is running a lab course this year.  Hopefully it will work with dd's schedule, and hopefully it will be repeated in future years.

Our cc is nearby for future use.

My kids are more geared toward environmental sciences and have many opportunities to do field work with environmental educators.  

 

[G5052]

My oldest used DIVE science for biology and chemistry. We did the ones that could be done at home, at home. The others were watched. Mine also went to the Landry Academy Chemistry Intensive and did a variety of experiments there.

 

I found physics to actually be the easiest to accomplish at home. Marbles, pulleys, and stop watches!

[8filltheheart]

I am not at the highschool level yet but I am inquiring to see how you all provide science laboratory experience for your high school students as this is required for entry into most colleges. Two sciences with lab is required. I know some people buy kits but I would want my child to be in a real laboratory with other students. Can anyone share how they have done this or are doing?

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

It is very valuable to provide a real lab experience to highschool students for the sciences. I think what I am going to do is dual enroll and send her to a community college to do her sciences with lab. I think I would be selling her short by buying kits and doing it at home plus I am no expert. I rather her get taught by an expert in the field. If I tried to do this I would not be fair to her. I have to find her a better alternative. I enjoyed working in laboratories with other students. There are alot of highschool classes I do not think I would like to tackle I am considering sending my kid to a private highschool or good public highschool because I want her to have memorable experiences outside of my home and kitchen.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I'm not sure if you are posting to ask advice or if you are posting to inform.  ??

 

FWIW, I have adult children who are in the STEM fields who did their labs at home until college level equivalencies.  One is a chemE and his first "real" labs were college chemistry when he DE in high school.  Our current college sophomore experienced his first college labs for cal physics when DE.  Neither were at all hampered by home labs.  Neither were hampered by not having had lab partners.  Neither were hampered by the fact that their mom is not an expert.  Actually, both have excelled and were/are top students in their classes and tutor(ed) their honor student ps peers.

[Kassia]

We're doing a combination of some labs at home, community college and Landry Academy intensives. My daughters completed the biology intensive and loved it. This summer my younger daughter will be doing the chemistry intensive. My older daughter took chemistry as a dual credit student.

 

edited: spelling

 

We are going to do our first Landry Academy intensive next year and are very excited about it (we are doing biology).  Our CC doesn't have an Intro to Biology course, but they do have an Intro to Chemistry course so dd will take chemistry as DE.

 

Erica

[SparklyUnicorn]

It is very valuable to provide a real lab experience to highschool students for the sciences.

 

This can be done at home unless you just don't want to.  Which is fine.  But there is nothing they do in a typical high school lab that can't be done at home.  Over the years we've had these conversations many times.  Some people were lucky enough to go to a high school with stuff like special vents and other costly items, but a lot of us didn't.  So when we need ventilation, we go outside or open up a window.  It's not a big deal.

 

The cost is certainly a consideration.  On the other hand if a college course costs $800 (plus books), I could buy a lot of stuff for home use for $800. There are several companies out there that will sell small quantities of nearly everything needed. 

[AngieW in Texas]

I taught science classes in my home for homeschoolers. I did a lab each week. 

 

For physics, I based most of my labs off of LabPaqs, but I also did other labs.

 

For chemistry, I got almost all of my labs from Prentice Hall Small Scale Chemistry Labs. This would not be cost-effective at all for one student, but it worked well for my class of 8, especially since I taught chemistry again two years later.

 

I am now a public school teacher and teach science. My kids got lab experiences that were at least equal to what they would have gotten in the school where I'm teaching.

 

My kids also all took at least two science classes at the cc through dual credit.

[Peaceful Isle]

There is nothing wrong with doing labs at home. There are some great kits and even free online labs you can do.

You or one of the siblings can be your child's partner ;)

I know there are some homeschool learning centers where they do labs with the kids. You just have to research if there are any around you.

[Targhee]

Volunteer to teach the lab in a cooperative setting! That was my solution at least. This year is general high school biology for my oldest (science minded 11 year old is tagging along and using the RSO Bio 2 text instead). I actually have 17 kids in two classes. We have use of the kitchen in the building where our co-op is, with stainless steel surfaces and large counter, gas range (works for some but not all heat needs), and fridges. I have $100 for the year from the co-op budget, plus a fee I charged each of the kids, and procured all the equipment we needed. Except microscopes, which we owned, and some glassware, which we owned.

 

Next year will be honors chemistry. I haven't finalized text or labs or anything, but I intend to invest in some nice glassware, better balance/scale, alcohol burners, ring stands and accessories, and of course chemicals. The only thing we will likely be missing out on is a hood (and doing things you should really do under a hood), but I didn't get to use one of those until college.

 

I agree that learning in a laboratory setting, with other students, and with functional equipment is important. You don't have to be the one to teach the lab (that just happens to be something I enjoy doing), but you can connect with other people and maybe find someone able to teach the lab. Trade off specialities - maybe you lead a literary discussion group or debate group or a mock trial group or an art class, whatever...

Edited March 25, 2016 by Targhee

[EKS]

I have a degree in biochemistry and worked in the field (which was a lab) for ten years and I honestly don't understand where the emphasis on high school science labs comes from.  I do them with my kids, but I think that most of them are just a waste of time.  I also think that most college labs are a waste of time.

 

There, I said it.

[Reefgazer]

Just curious...Why do you think they are a waste of time?  Some are, but many of the lab exercises I see and teach are worthwhile, especially for the hands-on type of learner.  But I teach biology and other science disciplines might be different.

I have a degree in biochemistry and worked in the field (which was a lab) for ten years and I honestly don't understand where the emphasis on high school science labs comes from.  I do them with my kids, but I think that most of them are just a waste of time.  I also think that most college labs are a waste of time.

 

There, I said it.

 

Edited March 26, 2016 by reefgazer

[EKS]

Just curious...Why do you think they are a waste of time?  Some are, but many of the lab exercises I see and teach are worthwhile, especially for the hands-on type of learner.  But I teach biology and other science disciplines might be different.

 

Because they usually take an extraordinary amount of time in comparison with the amount of learning they may or may not inspire.  I would say that one in every 15-20 lab exercises is actually worth the time.

 

ETA:  It annoys me that colleges seem to think that *lab* sciences, meaning science courses with a strong lab component are the thing they want their admits to have.  What they should *really* want is students who actually have some degree of science literacy.  A lab course doesn't guarantee that, and I'd wager that a course that emphasizes hands on work is *less* likely to produce students who actually have a reasonable amount of knowledge about science that they can use in their daily lives.  The focus shouldn't be on producing little scientists--it should be on producing adults that know enough about science to function as thinking members of society.  If people want to be scientists, they can get that in college.

Edited March 26, 2016 by EKS

[Targhee]

Because they usually take an extraordinary amount of time in comparison with the amount of learning they may or may not inspire. I would say that one in every 15-20 lab exercises is actually worth the time.

 

ETA: It annoys me that colleges seem to think that *lab* sciences, meaning science courses with a strong lab component are the thing they want their admits to have. What they should *really* want is students who actually have some degree of science literacy. A lab course doesn't guarantee that, and I'd wager that a course that emphasizes hands on work is *less* likely to produce students who actually have a reasonable amount of knowledge about science that they can use in their daily lives. The focus shouldn't be on producing little scientists--it should be on producing adults that know enough about science to function as thinking members of society. If people want to be scientists, they can get that in college.

Or perhaps it should include thinking individuals who recognize the imperical necessity of experimental work, the processes and skills (however rudimentary at the high school level) used to obtain it, and the fundamental reasoning involved in the analysis of experimentation.

 

The point of a lab in a teaching setting should not be to reproduce an known scientific fact or create a discovery moment (like calculating specific concentration of a reactant in redox reaction, or the specific gravity on earth, or recognizing the predator-prey relationship in cycling population sizes). It is to learn, understand, and apply the scientific method. Yes, labs take effort (frustratingly large amounts), but I believe they're important for the thinking individual - that consumer of scientific research who is not a professional in the field but needs an understanding to make informed decisions - as well as the scientist in training.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I have a degree in biochemistry and worked in the field (which was a lab) for ten years and I honestly don't understand where the emphasis on high school science labs comes from.  I do them with my kids, but I think that most of them are just a waste of time.  I also think that most college labs are a waste of time.

 

There, I said it.

 

I might have been a dunce, but a good majority of the time I had no idea what the point of the labs we did were.  This goes for high school and college (as a non science major).

[EKS]

Or perhaps it should include thinking individuals who recognize the imperical necessity of experimental work, the processes and skills (however rudimentary at the high school level) used to obtain it, and the fundamental reasoning involved in the analysis of experimentation.

 

The point of a lab in a teaching setting should not be to reproduce an known scientific fact or create a discovery moment (like calculating specific concentration of a reactant in redox reaction, or the specific gravity on earth, or recognizing the predator-prey relationship in cycling population sizes). It is to learn, understand, and apply the scientific method. Yes, labs take effort (frustratingly large amounts), but I believe they're important for the thinking individual - that consumer of scientific research who is not a professional in the field but needs an understanding to make informed decisions - as well as the scientist in training.

 

That may be the point, but it essentially never happens.  

 

A scientist engaging in science has the background knowledge necessary to engage in the scientific process properly.  There is a huge difference between a trained and experienced scientist and a novice high school student.  For example, just take the word "hypothesis."  To the novice, it can't mean anything more than a guess, because he doesn't have the background to do anything else.  To the expert, a hypothesis is more like an evolving model: "If this happens when I do this, that points to it working like this."  

 

It takes *years* to develop the expertise needed to become a scientist.  That's why real scientists don't normally start doing real science until graduate school.

 

So I think we need to be clear (and realistic) about the goals of a high school science lab.  Let's take the chemistry lab as an example.  It is realistic to expect students to develop some familiarity over the year with things like graduated cylinders, pipets, beakers, flasks, test tubes, etc and they might be able to see some of the physical phenomena they're studying for themselves (this one tends to be hit or miss).  

 

However, actually *doing* science in the context of a high school chemistry class is a fantastical notion.  Unless the activity is well controlled, meaning totally contrived by the instructor, you're going to have students simply mucking about in the dark.  Novices don't know know enough to ask the right questions--and a key step in the scientific process is asking the right question.  Not only that, in a chemistry lab, the last thing you want is a bunch of novices running around mixing chemicals--I used to run a chemistry lab, and the employees who scared me the most were the ones who didn't have a healthy respect for the substances in our lab.

 

So if we don't want students mucking about in the dark with dangerous chemicals, we need to control the activity.  And, when the activity is contrived by the instructor in this way--right at that point--it becomes just another lab exercise and *not* science.  

 

I know that regentrude talks about using physics labs to teach the scientific process, and I agree with her that that is the place to do it.  Results from physics labs (I'm thinking mostly about mechanics here) are going to be cleaner and as an added bonus, the lab equipment is less likely to blow up.

 

My son went to a school a few years ago for the 8th grade where he took a course taught by a master teacher called Experimental Design.  It was a fabulous course in that he actually learned about controls and the importance of multiple observations.  He even learned about statistically significant results.  This teacher picked topics that were accessible to novices, so they weren't confined to biology or chemistry or whatever.  The students still thought that a hypothesis was a guess, but you can't have everything.  But the thing was, the teacher did not focus much of that year on teaching scientific content as that was not the goal of the course.

 

So my point here is that if we are really interested in having kids experience the scientific process we need to develop courses that do that specifically and not tack it on to biology or chemistry or whatever.  Even if you decide to tack it on to physics, doing the experimental design aspect of it right is going to take a lot of time, so you need to decide what content is going to be cut from the course.  

 

That's what I think about that!

[8filltheheart]

I agree that learning in a laboratory setting, with other students, ...

Why is "in a lab setting, with other students" necessary to accomplish

The point of a lab in a teaching setting should not be to reproduce an known scientific fact or create a discovery moment (like calculating specific concentration of a reactant in redox reaction, or the specific gravity on earth, or recognizing the predator-prey relationship in cycling population sizes). It is to learn, understand, and apply the scientific method.

completely disagree that somehow doing a high school chemistry lab with a lab partner increases the value of the lab. It is not like kids can't walk into a college lab and be successful lab partners after labs at home alone.

[daijobu]

But isn't doing labs just plain fun?  I'm planning to supplement my dd's bio class with some labs.  We'll be using a bacterial transformation kit to create colonies that produce colorful proteins.  In the process, she'll learn how to create agar plates, use pipettes to add antibiotics and other reagents to promote and impede colony growth, use a water bath to heat shock the bacteria, and use an incubator.  No, we aren't doing actual science.  It's all from a kit that I ordered online.  But she'll be in an actual lab, using actual lab equipment, replicating a cool demonstration.  We also plan to do a gram stain just because of it's significance in medical diagnosis, and also stain some fungus samples.  Just for fun and well, to create memories, and give her a familiarity with how labs work.  

[Arcadia]

I might have been a dunce, but a good majority of the time I had no idea what the point of the labs we did were. This goes for high school and college (as a non science major).

Not a dunce. The value add depends on the teachers. Hubby's teachers were the get it done kind. Mine were the discussions heavy kind.

 

My college lab technicians were very chatty so we learn a lot about their bloopers so we did less bloopers when we went on internships.

 

I do have very good memories of mischief we got into at our labs. Like cooking french fries over the bunsen burner after the turgidity experiment in 7th grade. Colorful school uniforms after chemistry labs in 9th-12th grades. Making wine in the lab using the distillation equipment as a afterschool fun with a teacher in resident but not interfering. We use car batteries for physics and chem labs.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Why is "in a lab setting, with other students" necessary to accomplish

completely disagree that somehow doing a high school chemistry lab with a lab partner increases the value of the lab. It is not like kids can't walk into a college lab and be successful lab partners after labs at home alone.

 

Depends on the students too.  In high school you get what you get.  Many times my fellow lab partner(s) had no interest in being there.  Sometimes I did all the work, but shared the credit.  Sometimes people just goofed off.  When we dissected a fetal pig my lab mate hacked hers up and laughed like an idiot.  So where was this awesome lab "experience"?  I'm still wondering....

[Eliz]

In high school, I caught my long hair on fire in a chemistry lab!!  Thankfully, I wasn't hurt, but it definately taught me a lesson about safety in the lab.  I loved doing labs with my daughters at home until high school.  It got so expensive that dual credit (free for us) and Landry intensives make more sense.  We still do the simpler ones at home, as much for me as for my girls.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Because they usually take an extraordinary amount of time in comparison with the amount of learning they may or may not inspire.  I would say that one in every 15-20 lab exercises is actually worth the time.

 

ETA:  It annoys me that colleges seem to think that *lab* sciences, meaning science courses with a strong lab component are the thing they want their admits to have.  What they should *really* want is students who actually have some degree of science literacy.  A lab course doesn't guarantee that, and I'd wager that a course that emphasizes hands on work is *less* likely to produce students who actually have a reasonable amount of knowledge about science that they can use in their daily lives.  The focus shouldn't be on producing little scientists--it should be on producing adults that know enough about science to function as thinking members of society.  If people want to be scientists, they can get that in college.

 

Totally, totally agree with this.  And your next post.

[Targhee]

That may be the point, but it essentially never happens.  

 

...

 

 

My son went to a school a few years ago for the 8th grade where he took a course taught by a master teacher called Experimental Design.  It was a fabulous course in that he actually learned about controls and the importance of multiple observations.  He even learned about statistically significant results.  This teacher picked topics that were accessible to novices, so they weren't confined to biology or chemistry or whatever.  The students still thought that a hypothesis was a guess, but you can't have everything.  But the thing was, the teacher did not focus much of that year on teaching scientific content as that was not the goal of the course.

 

So my point here is that if we are really interested in having kids experience the scientific process we need to develop courses that do that specifically and not tack it on to biology or chemistry or whatever.  Even if you decide to tack it on to physics, doing the experimental design aspect of it right is going to take a lot of time, so you need to decide what content is going to be cut from the course.  

 

That's what I think about that!

I agree with the above!  I still think labs are important, and that something like the Experimental Design class you mention exemplify what I think is important in a lab. I would love to see a class like that replace the required content-lab component required for graduation/college admission. Labs are not important for teaching the concepts or lab skills, but for elucidating the process.

 

I believe there are far too many people out there who have no concept of what science actually is - notions ranging from a encyclical body of factual information to a magical process for creating "cool stuff" like cell phones and viagra. These are people who vote, propagate social mores and opinions which could propel science or hamper it, people who think that thorough "research" on WebMD makes them smarter than their physicians and at the same time expect scientists to save them from their non-compliant-choice-induced type II diabetes. Not understanding the nature of science, as a process of rational thought and experimentation, hampers the general public from making informed decisions with respect to science.  Just telling people what the scientific method is simply is not enough.  Learning how hypothesis are constructed, how variables are carefully controlled or manipulated, how data is analyzed (even in simplified form), how hypothesis are accepted and rejected, how errors are made in acceptance and rejection, how conclusions are shared and reviewed, all through participating in a simplified version of it (a "lab") is important for the development of the thinking individual's understanding.  This understanding will not be to the depth of the research scientist, but definitely to a level where an individual does not have to rely on an outside authority to sniff out much of the bunk spread at fiber optic speed through society.  We need people who can sift through massive amounts of science-related information with discernment, and make rational decisions on what is valid and what is not.

 

I fear that neglecting the lab which teaches scientific process undercuts any advantage the student has gained in content knowledge when it comes times to making informed decisions.

 

ETA: I know I'm just a mom (but I do have two science degrees and work experience in a research lab), but here is an example of how I think using labs, however flawed they are, aid in teaching a student.  This year we were doing a respiration lab, simple thing lots of biology classes do, and we had some major fails with results no where near what was anticipated.  So we took that time to discuss the lab, why it failed (was it bad scientific premiss from which we were working? was if sloppy lab procedure? was it poorly designed experiment? what do we do with our results? where would we go from here if we were in a research setting? etc?).  I think they learned a great deal from a failed lab.  No, I wasn't preparing the next research scientist with this, but I think I was helping them think of the process involved rather than merely being an open vessel into which I poured a tome of theories and principles).

Edited March 26, 2016 by Targhee

[Reefgazer]

I do think there are some labs that are not worth the paper the procedure is printed on, but in my homeschool, I can adjust that and expand the exercise.  For example, I aim to have DD become proficient with the microscope, which requires hands-on time in "lab".  Sometimes, exercises where the outcome is familiar to the student are useful in teaching the scientific method and experimental design.  That's especially true when the results aren't what you expected!  Handling lab equipment (such as reading a graduated cylinder at the meniscus or getting a feel for a micro-pipette) can also only be accomplished in an actual lab setting.

 

At any rate, I agree with you that scientific literacy should be the standard for admission, but scientific literacy and being comfortable in a lab, understanding and applying the scientific method, and handling lab equipment/using a scope, etc... are not mutually exclusive.  Ideally, if a student comes in with both skills, the lab can function at a higher level overall.

Because they usually take an extraordinary amount of time in comparison with the amount of learning they may or may not inspire.  I would say that one in every 15-20 lab exercises is actually worth the time.

 

ETA:  It annoys me that colleges seem to think that *lab* sciences, meaning science courses with a strong lab component are the thing they want their admits to have.  What they should *really* want is students who actually have some degree of science literacy.  A lab course doesn't guarantee that, and I'd wager that a course that emphasizes hands on work is *less* likely to produce students who actually have a reasonable amount of knowledge about science that they can use in their daily lives.  The focus shouldn't be on producing little scientists--it should be on producing adults that know enough about science to function as thinking members of society.  If people want to be scientists, they can get that in college.

 

Edited March 29, 2016 by reefgazer

[Reefgazer]

I agree with much of what you said here, but to the first bolded:  I agree it takes until grad school to really get good at experimental design and experimentation.  But it may be that those students who are good are good precisely because they had the foundational hands-on experience in high school *and* the scientific literacy to do well.  Learning what a hypothesis is can be helped along when one sees it in action and has to work with the results of an experiment, even if it's a relatively simple experiment that we all know the answer to.

 

To the second bolded:  The lack of being able to ask the right questions speaks more to the excellence of the teacher and the engagement of the student than it does to the value of the laboratory exercise, I think.

That may be the point, but it essentially never happens.  

 

A scientist engaging in science has the background knowledge necessary to engage in the scientific process properly.  There is a huge difference between a trained and experienced scientist and a novice high school student.  For example, just take the word "hypothesis."  To the novice, it can't mean anything more than a guess, because he doesn't have the background to do anything else.  To the expert, a hypothesis is more like an evolving model: "If this happens when I do this, that points to it working like this."  

 

It takes *years* to develop the expertise needed to become a scientist.  That's why real scientists don't normally start doing real science until graduate school.

 

So I think we need to be clear (and realistic) about the goals of a high school science lab.  Let's take the chemistry lab as an example.  It is realistic to expect students to develop some familiarity over the year with things like graduated cylinders, pipets, beakers, flasks, test tubes, etc and they might be able to see some of the physical phenomena they're studying for themselves (this one tends to be hit or miss).  

 

However, actually *doing* science in the context of a high school chemistry class is a fantastical notion.  Unless the activity is well controlled, meaning totally contrived by the instructor, you're going to have students simply mucking about in the dark.  Novices don't know know enough to ask the right questions--and a key step in the scientific process is asking the right question.  Not only that, in a chemistry lab, the last thing you want is a bunch of novices running around mixing chemicals--I used to run a chemistry lab, and the employees who scared me the most were the ones who didn't have a healthy respect for the substances in our lab.

 

So if we don't want students mucking about in the dark with dangerous chemicals, we need to control the activity.  And, when the activity is contrived by the instructor in this way--right at that point--it becomes just another lab exercise and *not* science.  

 

I know that regentrude talks about using physics labs to teach the scientific process, and I agree with her that that is the place to do it.  Results from physics labs (I'm thinking mostly about mechanics here) are going to be cleaner and as an added bonus, the lab equipment is less likely to blow up.

 

My son went to a school a few years ago for the 8th grade where he took a course taught by a master teacher called Experimental Design.  It was a fabulous course in that he actually learned about controls and the importance of multiple observations.  He even learned about statistically significant results.  This teacher picked topics that were accessible to novices, so they weren't confined to biology or chemistry or whatever.  The students still thought that a hypothesis was a guess, but you can't have everything.  But the thing was, the teacher did not focus much of that year on teaching scientific content as that was not the goal of the course.

 

So my point here is that if we are really interested in having kids experience the scientific process we need to develop courses that do that specifically and not tack it on to biology or chemistry or whatever.  Even if you decide to tack it on to physics, doing the experimental design aspect of it right is going to take a lot of time, so you need to decide what content is going to be cut from the course.  

 

That's what I think about that!