Help, that's all we did for science, just reading National Geographic and Scientific American

[crazyforlatin]

Dd is in 7th grade, and for science, that's about all we did for this year. What can we do to round this out to make it look better on a transcript for a high school program application?

We will be going through Miller's Biology this summer, but that's in the summer. And, for this state, 8th grade begins the day after 7th grade is over. I mean I could say we did biology for 7th grade as well? We won't be doing any labs though unless someone here can recommend a somewhat inexpensive lab kit. No labs on a transcript won't look good.

For 8th grade, Dd will be in Chemistry taught by Hive member Dicentra, so we're covered for 8th grade science on the transcript.

[madteaparty]

I'm going to PM you

[regentrude]

A transcript only contains a course title, not a description of materials. You can simply call it "General Science". If a description is needed, write something like:

"This course provided a broad overview over different fields of science, with a focus on current developments and their societal context. The student learned to extract information from articles in popular scientific journals. " 

I cannot imagine anybody cares about labs in 7th grade. Most of what passes for "labs" at that age are nothing but glorified demonstrations.

[Julie of KY]

I wouldn't put 7th and 8th grade course on the transcript at all.

 

[madteaparty]

34 minutes ago, Julie of KY said:

I wouldn't put 7th and 8th grade course on the transcript at all.

 

?This is a middle school transcript.

[crazyforlatin]

5 hours ago, regentrude said:

A transcript only contains a course title, not a description of materials. You can simply call it "General Science". If a description is needed, write something like:

"This course provided a broad overview over different fields of science, with a focus on current developments and their societal context. The student learned to extract information from articles in popular scientific journals. " 

I cannot imagine anybody cares about labs in 7th grade. Most of what passes for "labs" at that age are nothing but glorified demonstrations.

Thanks! That’s a great description which I’m going to use; even I’m thinking we didn’t do such a shabby job 

 

[regentrude]

15 hours ago, Julie of KY said:

I wouldn't put 7th and 8th grade course on the transcript at all.

 

what else would she put? This is for application to highschool

[Julie of KY]

3 hours ago, regentrude said:

what else would she put? This is for application to highschool

Oops, by the time I had gotten to read through all the responses, I had forgotten that the question was about applying to a high school program - not college.

 

[Dmmetler]

Well, my DD wasn’t successful at her application for 7th grade at at particular selective program, but my experience was that everything but math and language arts was kind of gravy. Which was a little frustrating, because at the time, Math had been “work through Singapore and then AoPS at home”, and just was kind of “there”. I wrote up a very detailed description for science, and I’m not sure it even got read. 

So, basically, I wouldn’t worry too much about a year of reading National Geographic and Scientific American and following rabbit trails. It more than matches in level of content what most applicants will have done in their school, and is likely not their prime concern. 

[arliemaria]

Can I ask how much reading you required? Was there any output? I’d love to spend a year doing something like this.

[crazyforlatin]

On 5/10/2018 at 10:08 PM, arliemaria said:

Can I ask how much reading you required? Was there any output? I’d love to spend a year doing something like this.

On average about 2 per month since I only borrowed those two magazines and usually they are available for borrowing a month after they're received at the library. She borrowed books to read further into subjects appearing in the magazines. I didn't ask for any written output, just asking her to teach me the most interesting facts. We've had a busy year with a lot of writing from another subject, so reading science magazines was relaxing and fun for her. One thing I did ask her to do was pay attention to writers' intro paragraphs, transitions, and conclusions, as part of studying nonfiction writing.