Multiple Sciences in 1 Year - Recommendations Please!

[AsgardCA]

I'm planning next year and wondering if anyone has recommendations for something that would cover all 4 areas of science in one year. We've really dropped the ball on science over the years and I'd like to at least get a good foundation / introduction to each of the areas we were supposed to have covered in depth in the past. I'm looking for secular middle school resources.

[Wheres Toto]

A lot of middle school curriculum do General Science or Integrated Science, which often cover the basics of multiple science disciplines in preparation for high school courses.   I don't know of anything specific but searching on General or Integrated science might give you some ideas. 

[Magnum Necis Academy]

We haven’t used it yet, but plan on using Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding for 2020-21. It interweaves all the threads of science together.

[AsgardCA]

Thank you for the suggestions. The Real Science 4 Kids looks like it might work for us, but I'll keep looking.

[hs03842]

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Edited June 8, 2020 by JoyKM

[AsgardCA]

16 hours ago, JoyKM said:

I have taught 6th, 7th and 8th grade science in Texas public schools.  I can tell you that the 6th grade curriculum is a foundational survey course, the 7th grade curriculum builds off of that to heavily focus on life sciences (ecology, the human body, chemistry as related to living things, etc.), and 8th grade is focused on physics, astronomy, and chemistry.  I just looked on Thriftbooks and for $5.09 you can pick up a used student textbook by Science Fusion (not a Texas edition but our district did adopt Science Fusion while I was there).  Search for the title, "Science Fusion: Student Edition Grade 6 2015."  I would recommend grabbing something like that to get a sense of what touching on many areas of science in a year would look like.  You could even just use it for reading and questions.  

 

These sound interesting. Would you know what the difference is between the different state editions? I'm seeing Texas, Indiana, and Ohio. I'm sure it wouldn't matter much anyway given that we're in Canada. Thank you!

[hs03842]

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Edited June 8, 2020 by JoyKM

[AsgardCA]

20 minutes ago, JoyKM said:

What these seem to be are used copies of consumable student textbooks that must still be in good enough condition to sell.  Since they are so cheap I thought I'd share.  The school district orders one per student but teachers often use them in such a way that some do not get used or get very little use and are still in excellent condition.  For example each year I had quite a few unused student books since I would keep a class set out for when we used them (we almost never actually wrote in or tore pages out of the books), then the rest of the books were in my science cabinet to use for new students, send home at a parent's request or for ill students.  I'd let them take home a book at the end of the year if they were interested, but there were always some left behind that I'd bank for the next year (new kids, sick people, same sort of issues).  Get one in as good a condition as you can.  As to the difference between states:  Since each state in the US gets to run its own education we have Common Core nationally (which tends to be adopted by any state that needs a large chunk of federal funding to keep the schools open), as well as different state versions for states that are continuing with their own, self made standards.  High quality science standards should align to the National Science Education Standards (NSES).  You'll find in the US that--due to differences regionally in views or how conservative/liberal an area is--the standards/what is specifically taught will be slightly different to reflect what most of the people in that state are comfortable with.  For some reason many people speak as if the entire nation is teaching the things California teaches which is just *false*.  I never saw anything in the chapters of the Texas books that I used that was outside of consensus science, but I can't really say how the other states do things (one would hope they are teaching good science).  The biggest perk for you with this is wanting to teach a lot of science in one year.  You could pick up a 7th and 8th grade book as well --then if your child is particularly interested in a certain topic he/she can do lessons from the older grade that cover it a little more but that's not necessary.  

Thank you for your insight! I think these might just do the trick. 🙂