“Regular” sciences needed before AP?

[Jackie]

I wasn’t sure whether this belonged here or the high school board, but I don’t have a high schooler and I’m just doing some wildly speculative long-range planning. 

Do students need to (or should they) take the “regular” version of high school science skills before taking the AP versions? Or are the AP versions covering the stuff in the regular versions, plus more and deeper, and students can choose to start with those?

[SoCal_Bear]

You are expected to cover a high school level course first for bio and chem. Not physics though, but physics is now split into 1 & 2. Physics 2 is hard to find offered from what I have heard. Hope this helps.

[Jackie]

And a tagalong question - is AP Physics Algebra-based or Calculus-based Physics?

[Roadrunner]

1 hour ago, Jackie said:

And a tagalong question - is AP Physics Algebra-based or Calculus-based Physics?

 

AP Physics 1 and 2 are Algebra based. AP Physics C is calculus based. There are two exams for C - mechanics & electricity/magnetism. 

[Dmmetler]

If your DC is ready for a college textbook and would be fine diving in at that level depth (and good at remembering details without  lot of repetition), bio would probably work. On most boards, I wouldn’t suggest that, but here, a lot of our kids have probably done the high school level reading, if not the labs, before high school and have a good foundation, and would find a high school class deadly dull, and AP stretches the College intro class to two semesters anyway. Most of the biologists DD works with assume that kids have had a solid bio background, and now offer a class that is out of the biology sequence for those who are not solid on their skills that would be equivalent to an AP (and serves as the DE option for students who do not have AP bio available to them, or who want to do it in one semester or a summer).

 

Be aware that a good high school bio (or chem)course does have some foundational lab skills that are taught. One reason why DD decided to do the local lab courses for bio and chem when they became an option was because she can easily participate in a college (or professional) lab group, but had trouble with some of the techniques. It seemed worth it for her to get the practice in before diving into college majors level classes for credit. 

 

[Arcadia]

Generally no if kids are willing to put in the effort to preread before the AP class starts. DS13 is willing but DS12 isn’t.

DS13 did Clover Creek Physics in 6th grade for the social aspect and really enjoyed Jetta (MorningGlory) online sessions. Social aspect was why we signed him up for that class. He didn’t take physics in 7th but did spend two weeks on self study test prep for sat physics test (together with sat math 2) in June. Then he read through the Giancoli Physics for Scientists and Engineers textbooks in Summer 2017 once he confirmed he wanted to do the AP Physics C courses (PAH Jeff Lanctot).

DS13 didn’t do any formal chemistry class. I paid for Thinkwell Chemistry for him but he did less than half of it and I can understand why as the pace was nice for DS12 but too slow for DS13. He read the Chang textbook cover to cover in Summer 2017 and did the PAH AP Chemistry course in 8th grade.

DS13 has read Campbell Biology AP edition cover to cover in elementary school and just has no interest in Biology as a academic subject. He is interested in genetics but not interested enough to take a Biology prerequisite. 

DS12 has not taken any formal physics class. He tried Khan and gave up, read the algebra based Giancoli textbook and gave up. DS13 did a crash course revision for SAT Physics for DS12 three days before the June exam and DS12 scored an 800. DS12 has however watched most of the Physics Girl YouTube videos, Crash Course Physics YouTube videos and Veritasium YouTube videos.

DS12 did a high school chemistry class in summer 2018 at a brick and mortar school for the social aspect and the labs. He loves labs and labs every week of chemistry class makes his summer enjoyable. I choose to pay for Chemistry rather than Physics because Chemistry labs make more mess and is more fun with classmates. 

I don’t know how DS12 will do for AP courses but he has DS13 to help him from time to time and DS13 has BTDT experience. 

[Jackie]

1 hour ago, HeighHo said:

It depends on the student's preparation and the level of math achieved. In general, if honors science was done in middle school and the student has accelerated math by one year, they will go right in to CC or honors high school science.  If they are more accelerated they will go straight in to AP science....

...It really comes down to interest and availability, and how deep the class goes depends on the background of the students.

 

Snipped the quote.

What I have now is a mostly unschooled, academic by nature, elementary student who loves reading engaging nonfiction. I assume we’ll homeschool until college. I looked through some middle school science texts recently, and there’s little she doesn’t know in them. I’m wondering if between now and high school age, I should encourage her to do the usual high school progression in a more formalized way in order to do the AP sequence of sciences at high school ages. Or if I ignore it and let her keep on with her unschoolish ways, if she would have notable problems sliding directly into AP classes (online, at home, or with a local tutor).

Math level should be a nonissue. She’s trying her hand at Algebra now.

[Dmmetler]

My DD basically skipped from doing whatever science she wanted to reading journals and college textbooks. At about your DD’s age (IIRC), I bought a subscription to Uzzingo, and she did the middle school in about 3 months (and I mean what they considered 3 grade levels of material). They let her switch to the high school, and she did all of their high school modules in the rest of that year and a fall semester. She also was a beta tester for SD accelerate and basically did every class they had. Including AP bio and AP Environmental science. We did a home-grown entomology class that Spribg, using a college syllabus and book, and then she did what I outlined above as a 11 yr old in a class of mostly 10th and 11th graders. Once she started college classes, her pace has slowed, which has helped. 

[SoCal_Bear]

why don't you have her do the high school content ones at Athena? The material is engaging and challenging for young learners. There is a bio and physics ones. I often think what comes into play is the EF skills of said learner. AP courses just have a lot of stuff to get through. Kids are all over the place in their ability to manage that and what sort of output they can manage. At least at Athena, the content is really high without a ton of demands for output. 

 

[Arcadia]

2 hours ago, Jackie said:

 I’m wondering if between now and high school age, I should encourage her to do the usual high school progression in a more formalized way in order to do the AP sequence of sciences at high school ages. Or if I ignore it and let her keep on with her unschoolish ways, if she would have notable problems sliding directly into AP classes (online, at home, or with a local tutor).

 

EF skills is what comes into play if online. My kids does chinese with a local tutor and we can be flexible with workloads so basically light on exam weeks and heavy during Thanksgiving break, Christmas break and long weekends like Memorial Day weekend. However for DS13’s online AP Chemistry and Physics classes, he had to follow the teacher’s schedule for assignments, labs and quizzes . He could be ahead a little but not behind. 

On the other hand, the Edhesive AP Computer Science A online course was individual based and didn’t have hard deadlines so my kids did miss the suggested deadlines a few times due to being too sick to do anything but sleep. 

I didn’t plan when kids were in elementary and middle school. DS12 just declared last month that he wants to finish physics and chemistry in 8th grade just like DS13. DS13 decided he wanted to do AP Calculus exam in 7th to do AP Physics C in 8th, so he did intermediate algebra, intro to geometry and precalculus in 6th. DS13 wants to pick “fun science” for high school which was why he wanted to finish physics and chemistry in 8th. He hasn’t decide on science for 9th grade but we have a few feasible possibilities.  

Where I help my kids is in printing, punching holes and filing. Our printer is shared and it loves to complain way before toner is low. So since I have nothing to do, helping them with once a week printing of notes and assignments saves my kids “swearing” at the printer. Our HP printer is wonderful other than the toner low warnings that I have to bypass every time I turn it on. I could get hundreds of pages printed after the toner warning comes on before the printing starts to fade. My kids like to file their own german and chinese files but like me to file their math and science files. 

ETA:

DS13 likes brick and mortar class or asynchronous online classes. He doesn’t like online classes on a fixed schedule even though he enjoyed Clover Creek Physics class and Roy Speed Shakespeare classes. He also prefers text heavy class versus video heavy class. 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Arcadia

[Dmmetler]

2 hours ago, calbear said:

why don't you have her do the high school content ones at Athena? The material is engaging and challenging for young learners. There is a bio and physics ones. I often think what comes into play is the EF skills of said learner. AP courses just have a lot of stuff to get through. Kids are all over the place in their ability to manage that and what sort of output they can manage. At least at Athena, the content is really high without a ton of demands for output. 

 

I would agree with that, with the caveat that Athena’s is really trying to provide classes to appeal to and meet the needs of teens, including AP classes. So is G3-check the expectations for each class to make sure it’s a good fit. 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Dmmetler2

[SeaConquest]

We did the middle school Athena's stuff for early elementary (which were perfect), are now starting high school level courses for late elementary (AIM Academy Bio, and likely Clover Creek Physics and Clover Valley Chem), and will likely move to DE (either at the CC or UC) for middle and high school. When I look at what little credit APs garner these days, as well as the expense and hassle in finding a test center, it seems better for us to DE with SAT2s -- more social and more hands-on labs.

Edited August 17, 2018 by SeaConquest

[Jackie]

Money is very limited. In order to outsource more to Athena’s (or anywhere else), we would have to cut drastically somewhere else, probably eliminating summer camps altogether. She would have no interest in that trade off. Also, she resists having her schooling any more formalized than it absolutely needs to be; formal science classes are an idea I can plant in her brain, but they’d definitely need to be her decision for them to work. I’m comfortable teaching high school level Bio and Chem at home, and possibly AP level, though I need to take a much closer look at what those entail. Physics will need outsourced whenever she wants it.

EF skills would certainly be an issue for outsourcing at high school/AP level right now, but I’m not thinking about now. And I know she’ll likely blow up any plans I try to make, but it’s very helpful to me to know what her options are so that I can help lay them out for her.

[Arcadia]

27 minutes ago, Jackie said:

Money is very limited. In order to outsource more to Athena’s (or anywhere else), we would have to cut drastically somewhere else, probably eliminating summer camps altogether. 

 

We went with PAH because of cost since kids have no interest in DE for Physics, Chemistry or Biology. 

Physics, Chemistry and lab kits is $2,405.75 for DS12 and was $2,349.24 for DS13.

The local community colleges DS13 is looking at do give credit for AP scores but not SAT subject test scores. Since DS13 has no interest in DE during middle school, AP exams was the easier way to get high school credit and also skip the community college placement tests when he wants to DE in high school.

Our highest cost is actually sports and music. Recreational tennis which I count for PE is already costing us about $3k per kid for 36 weeks.

[Xahm]

If it helps to know, the high school I attended, which has a large gifted population, allowed some sophomores to take AP Chem in the years before I went there. They ended it just before I had a chance, largely because parents would advocate for their border-line child to get in the class and then complain that their child had a low grade in the class. It was too much of a pain to keep up standards and deal with parents. (To be fair, students had to maintain a 3.0 or get booted from the school, so GPA did matter.) Now they've gone back to allowing it, really even encouraging it, with more relaxed standards, so the pass rate isn't great. All that to say, there are schools that let students do AP for their first real exposure to chemistry, and many students, but certainly not most, do well.

Edited August 18, 2018 by xahm
Typos

[Rush]

On 8/17/2018 at 8:25 PM, dmmetler said:

My DD basically skipped from doing whatever science she wanted to reading journals and college textbooks. At about your DD’s age (IIRC), I bought a subscription to Uzzingo, and she did the middle school in about 3 months (and I mean what they considered 3 grade levels of material). They let her switch to the high school, and she did all of their high school modules in the rest of that year and a fall semester. She also was a beta tester for SD accelerate and basically did every class they had. Including AP bio and AP Environmental science. We did a home-grown entomology class that Spribg, using a college syllabus and book, and then she did what I outlined above as a 11 yr old in a class of mostly 10th and 11th graders. Once she started college classes, her pace has slowed, which has helped. 

Thanks for sharing. My kiddo liked Uzzingo so much that he has done a quarter of all Physical science in one go ?

[SoCal_Bear]

Don't you have access to UC Scout classes via your charter? 

[HomeForNow]

(New poster) I have a general "help us set up home school"-type thread here https://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/679754-bm-disaster-now-need-help-with-home-schooling-setup/
but I'll also ask the science part in this thread.

DSgr7 (grade 7) briefly tried B&M school and is now back home, has not done a specific structured science course before, but should do one now. He has finished AoPS PreCalculus. Would it make sense to do AP Physics 1 without prior physics experience? This link suggests so
https://blog.prepscholar.com/whats-the-difference-between-ap-physics-1-2-and-c
as do earlier comments in this thread. He's never taken any "big" exams before (apart from many math contests) but wouldn't necessarily have to take the actual AP exam if not ready. We just at least want to do a full year "proper" science course.

Any suggestions for an AP Physics 1 course, preferably self-paced? We just discovered edX.org and saw this course
https://www.edx.org/course/ap-physics-1-ricex-advphy1x
There's no verified certificate available, but at least it appears to be a full course.

Any thoughts on whether AP Physics 1 makes sense with this background (PreCalc, but no physics course) and whether this edX course, or some other course would be good? Does it make sense to continue with AP Physics 2 in grade 8 and AP Physics C in grade 9 (after having done Calc (an AP Calculus BC course) in grade 8)?

Is it fair to say that AP Biology and AP Chemistry courses can be done (if permitted) without a previous course, but perhaps with some preliminary reading?

 

[8filltheheart]

It is student dependent. My ds could have easily taken the AP bio exam after bio but didn't need or want the credit. He took it his sr yr after no bio anything since early middle school. He had focused on chem and physics for yrs and bio was taken simply bc our state required it for graduation. 

@HomeForNow Algebra-based physics is not a prerequisite for cal-based physics (my oldest ds took no physics before his college engineering physics course). Just bc CB split alg-based physics into 2 year long physics courses does not mean that is necessary and that they can't be combined into a single yr's course. 

If a student is STEM bound, there is no pt in pursuing the 2 alg-based AP exams bc they won't garner any credit, only cal-based physics. A solid physics course before cal-based physics would serve them equally well if necessary.

[HomeForNow]

^ Thanks for this explanation. So even if AP Physics 1(&2, together in 1 year I see now) wouldn't count for a STEM degree, it could still be the right level for a very mathy 7th grader, and it could serve as the "regular" physics taken before AP Physics C.

Also, since we want DSgr7 to go to B&M high school for a least the last 2 years, before college, then at least taking the lower level could help getting placed in the right courses (perhaps).

Anyway, the edX Phys 1&2 courses could still be a good way to learn the material.

However, I also see strong endorsements for Uzinggo (which I hadn't heard of) so we could try that. We might try both Uzinggo and the edX courses.