FairProspects Posted January 16, 2019 Share Posted January 16, 2019 At what level should students be completing lab reports? How many lab reports per semester or year are appropriate for high school science lab credit? I have a STEM oriented student who will be beginning 9th grade next year, so it matters to me that he is well prepared for college science. I never took lab science at the collegiate level, so other than what I took in high school I have no frame of reference. During my education, we started lab reports in 7th grade and wrote them throughout Earth Science, Physical Science, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, but I don't remember how many or any of that. I'm assuming lab reports are still critical for college level science, yes? He has not yet written lab reports outside of science fair projects completed in both elementary and middle school years. Ds is ultimately not looking to consider Ivy League schools, but hopefully top state schools or honors programs, and some fairly competitive private schools. Can you all help me guide him through this? He will be in Geometry next year for math (private math teacher) and probably taking Biology of some kind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted January 16, 2019 Share Posted January 16, 2019 There is no fixed number of labs a student needs to do, and no specific requirements re lab reports in high school. Really, it's not rocket science - the student needs to learn to document what he does, i.e. describe experimental setup and procedure, record his findings, write up the results and a conclusion. The goal is for another person to be able to understand and possibly reproduce the experiment. The precise format is irrelevant, since each college instructor will have very specific requirements for their particular lab, and those requirements will differ widely - so the student just needs to be literate and capable of following directions; it makes no sense to drill a particular format. I prefer fewer more in depth labs to oodles of superficial "labs" that are no more than demonstrations. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted January 16, 2019 Author Share Posted January 16, 2019 Ah, ok. I think I got the number of reports idea from the fact that we will need to use a cover school to log a transcript, so maybe this is a question for the cover school. I just assumed since they required a set number of lab reports to count the course as a lab science, that there was some standard number of labs somewhere that was necessary for high school credit to be applied. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted January 16, 2019 Share Posted January 16, 2019 Dd#1 did 4-5 longer and several shorter write-up in her year-long Non-Honors chem (online) class and Zero (0) lab reports in her semester long, on-the-college-campus (not a CC, a 4 yr state college) Chemistry class that was specifically for (Bio)Chem majors. (They don't actually offer a Chem major, only a Chem minor. The Biochem majors have to take this two semester Chem sequence. ) I don't recommend the latter as your number of lab reports, but included that tidbit to give you an idea of the range of crazy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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