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Modern Biology (Holt/Memoria Press) -- any thoughts?


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Anyone use Holt's Modern Biology text? Memoria Press has plans/guide for it, as well as streaming lecture. 

I'm in planning mode for next year, for my rising 10th grader. She's doing a mommy-made Botany course this year because I didn't feel she was ready for high school biology. 

So, Modern Biology -- good, bad, ugly?

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It’s fine. We had already done a lot of biology, so we ended up not using MPs materials. We did not care for the test Holt has with the TE stuff (I found a TE disk).

If you want to use Holt Modern, check out MPs materials. It’s really way more in the textbook than anyone can cover in a year otherwise. We didn’t care for the MP videos we previewed, but we are picky.

Holt has another version of Biology that looks more do-able in a year.
 

We honestly mostly used Modern States CLEP prep and mostly anatomy labs, but it was kind of a second pass through biology for Dd.

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My dd took the class at MPOA three years ago. The class was fine. It followed the Holt textbook and covered evolution which was the main thing we were looking for. Their class doesn't do every chapter in the book. Some weeks covered 3 or 4 chapters very lightly (fungi, amphibians, reptiles, organ systems etc.) It focused on cells, genetics and evolution.

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Haha, so far we've got two "it's fine" votes. Doesn't sound too exciting. 😄

Honestly, with this child, I was initially thinking Friendly Biology with lots of video supplementation...but was having 2nd thoughts re: if it was enough. Modern Biology was a new idea that I just couldn't find much info for. 

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7 hours ago, alisoncooks said:

Haha, so far we've got two "it's fine" votes. Doesn't sound too exciting. 😄

Honestly, with this child, I was initially thinking Friendly Biology with lots of video supplementation...but was having 2nd thoughts re: if it was enough. Modern Biology was a new idea that I just couldn't find much info for. 

Ha. True. Biology is a hard subject for high school. I didn't think she was ready to tackle a college class (I think she would have been fine). AP Bio was overkill for what my kiddo needs. I honestly never found anything better than "fine" for biology and I looked at every.thing. available. Holt was the one we liked best.

We did "baby" Campbell in late middle school with Hoagland's Exploring the Way Life Works. My dd did actually like the Modern States videos. I think it's a Purdue professor.

I think there is a pretty large gap in the level of rigor between Friendly Biology and Holt Modern. I don't know if could pair the Friendly Biology with the CLEP prep videos? CLEP is college level.

Good Luck! 

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5 hours ago, MamaSprout said:

I think there is a pretty large gap in the level of rigor between Friendly Biology and Holt Modern. I don't know if could pair the Friendly Biology with the CLEP prep videos? CLEP is college level.

Yeah, I want something a little *more* than Friendly Bio....but maybe gentler than some of the others. But the options really seem to be either/or for biology (no Goldilocks sweet spot). 

Also, idk that we'll do any CLEP. Honestly, she'll probably go straight to cc and then transfer to a uni after 2 years...

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Have you looked at Miller Levine?  I used Holt with my oldest, but with my second I got ML bc I thought it had better graphics (visual learner, we needs pictures,  graphs, organizers).  I think the content covered was the same,  but the ML text seemed more interesting to read.  I also liked the student workbook rather than printing off pages from the teacher resources from Holt.  I know not all kids need worksheets, but this kid did.   

And I also highly recommend Biology Corner, HHMI BioInteractive, he Princeton Review Biology Coloring Book,  Amoeba Sisters on YT, and Getting Needy with Mel and Gerty on TPT.

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My dd actually liked the Memoria Press videos and the Holt Biology book. She loved the Princeton Biology Coloring Book. (I used a Campbell book with support materials from Pearson for my ds but wanted something different for my dd.) The Memoria Press materials are not the most robust, but my daughter retained the information and the schedule kept her on track. She often did additional research on items she found interesting. My dd will not be going into a STEM field, so we did not need the most challenging materials. The last few years have been difficult for me, so I needed something that required minimal input and planning from me.

 

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