Marine biology for an 8th grader?

[staceyobu]

We've had a terrible, horrible, no good 7th grade year. I'm wanting to allow my daughter to follow her interests as much as possible next year to sort of give her a year of recovery before diving into 9th grade work. She has asked to do marine biology for science. She's a very strong reader and writer, but science has never held much interest for her.

 

Are there any programs besides Apologia for marine biology? Could she hang with Apologia without taking high school level biology first? The samples I can see online look fine, but I think it's also unit one of one. I don't know if the difficulty increases.

[MinivanMom]

My oldest dd was very similar. She was a very strong reader and writer who hated science. I encouraged her to choose something that interested her for 8th grade, and she asked for marine biology.

I wanted it to be as fun as possible so we passed on the high school texts (most of which seemed to require biology as a prerequisite), and I designed my own course instead. We used the Great Courses Oceanography lectures as the spine; she watched one lecture per week over the course of the year. Then we added in several books; DK Smithsonian Ocean: a visual encyclopedia and Smithsonian Ocean: Our Water, Our World were the ones that she really loved. The first is a children's book at a high-elementary/low-middle school level, and the second is an adult book with gorgeous photography and text. I also got her The Marine Biology Coloring by Thomas Nielsen, and she spent hours with that book and a huge pack of nice colored pencils. She also watched a ton of documentaries; she really like The Blue Planet Series. And she wrote a big research paper on orca whales.

For what it's worth, she really enjoyed the year. She is still a language/writing girl headed in a language/writing direction, but I'm so glad we took the time off to do something fun in 8th grade instead of trying to push ahead into high school level textbooks.

[Milknhoney]

There's always Apologia's elementary level  text. Might be below your daughter's level, but I've always found the Apologia texts to be highly informative. (I learn a lot myself!). Possibly for an 8th grader it would work as a spine and then you could beef it up with MinivanMom's suggestions.

My daughter reads the Apologia zoology books for leisure. (She's almost 9 so take that for what it's worth...). 

Also just throwing this out there... last year my son (then 12) and I read 20k Leagues Under the Sea. It references a lot of sea life, so we were using the Apologia book a lot looking up creatures we had never heard of, and then Googling the ones that weren't listed. Might be an interesting inclusion in a marine science course for a literary-minded person.

[staceyobu]

6 hours ago, Milknhoney said:

There's always Apologia's elementary level  text. Might be below your daughter's level, but I've always found the Apologia texts to be highly informative. (I learn a lot myself!). Possibly for an 8th grader it would work as a spine and then you could beef it up with MinivanMom's suggestions.

My daughter reads the Apologia zoology books for leisure. (She's almost 9 so take that for what it's worth...). 

Also just throwing this out there... last year my son (then 12) and I read 20k Leagues Under the Sea. It references a lot of sea life, so we were using the Apologia book a lot looking up creatures we had never heard of, and then Googling the ones that weren't listed. Might be an interesting inclusion in a marine science course for a literary-minded person.

We've already done the elementary book!

[LAR]

OTA is offering a marine bio course which looks really interesting. 

[Targhee]

Someone on another thread recommend this site’s marine bio series

http://nextlevelhomeschool.com/course/

[staceyobu]

19 hours ago, LAR said:

OTA is offering a marine bio course which looks really interesting. 

What is OTA?

[LAR]

Opententacademy.com

We've had a tremendous year with OTA. Eva and Jonathan have been fantastic to work with.  Check it out. 

[HollyDay]

We used Marine Biology by Amy Sauter Hill published by Walch Publishing.  Rainbow Resources carry the text and the Teacher guide.  It was a very good option for us

[lovinmyboys]

My son is doing marine zoology with Next level homeschool and I think he is really learning a lot.

[alicai]

Marine Bio 101 followed by vertebrates and invertebrates with Next Level Homeschool. My daughter LOVED it and learned an incredible amount.

[Pegs]

On 4/19/2018 at 12:29 PM, HollyDay said:

We used Marine Biology by Amy Sauter Hill published by Walch Publishing.  Rainbow Resources carry the text and the Teacher guide.  It was a very good option for us

I see that there's a lab book too. Did you use it?

[HollyDay]

14 hours ago, Pegs said:

I see that there's a lab book too. Did you use it?

No we did not use it.  I found videos online or from our library to match topics we were studying.  Dd enjoyed it quite a bit.  I also found a used copy of Marine Biology by Castro and Huber for a very good price and used it as a reference

 

[Dmmetler]

Also, on a more social side, https://athenasacademy.com/courses/tropical-coral-reef-ecosystem-junior-instructor-summer-2018/

 

Junior instructor classes are taught by a student in the Athena’s program who has a lot of knowledge in an interest in the area covered. They are discussion heavy, fun, and very, very social. I don’t see a fall class on the schedule, yet, but Emma may not have arranged her fall classes yet to figure out when she can teach. I know she also does general marine bio and a marine mammals class. She is easily as into marine life as my daughter is into reptiles and amphibians.