History/ Social Studies Recommendation

[SDMomof3]

I am looking for a history/social studies recommendation for my son. He is a rising 8th grader. Ds is a math a stem kid. Ds test at high school/college level for English but he is not interested in humanities. He will have a heavy course load next year, so I am hoping to find a low output history class or curriculum. 

We homeschool through a charter, so I am looking for something secular. Thanks

 

Edited March 12, 2021 by SDMomof3

[SanDiegoMom]

Online G3 is very low output -- one class meeting a week, forum posts, not too much writing.  No grades, so charter would have to assign grades if needed. 

[SDMomof3]

1 hour ago, SanDiegoMom said:

Online G3 is very low output -- one class meeting a week, forum posts, not too much writing.  No grades, so charter would have to assign grades if needed. 

Thanks

[SeaConquest]

Also, I was able to get Online G3 added as a vendor. It's not advertised, but they are. And highly recommend for high interest and low output.

Edited March 13, 2021 by SeaConquest

[lewelma]

Does it have to be an outsourced class?

[SDMomof3]

13 minutes ago, lewelma said:

Does it have to be an outsourced class?

No it does not have to be outsourced. He is doing Thinkwell Honors American Government right now and finds it bland.

[lewelma]

1 hour ago, SDMomof3 said:

No it does not have to be outsourced. He is doing Thinkwell Honors American Government right now and finds it bland.

Why don't you create a course that is interesting to him. Do it yourself. Here are just some random ideas for a STEM kid:

1) History of science

2) Ethics of privacy and information

3) Ethics of bioscience 

4) Environmental Law

5) History of Manufacturing

6) Science communication - how to talk and write for a lay audience

7) The impact of colonialism on Africa (not STEM, but my younger did this and it was super fascinating)

Basically, ask him what he wants to study, and design a course around it.  Have him write a research paper on something that fascinates him. If he is really high end, you could do something like The ethics of evaluating risk in large scale scientific projects . My older boy studied that for a term, and did a research paper on the Gulf Coast oil disaster - the Deepwater Horizon disaster. He reseached how it came to happen due to a lack of leadership and due to complex and inefficient governmental oversight. This overlaid with a capitalist motive made for fascinating stuff, and very valuable to a future STEM leader. 

Social Science/ History can be crazy broad.  Link it to his STEM interests so that it is work that he values and is interested in doing. Have the output be small, make the focus on the research and the learning. 

 

[SDMomof3]

On 3/14/2021 at 12:09 AM, lewelma said:

Why don't you create a course that is interesting to him. Do it yourself. Here are just some random ideas for a STEM kid:

1) History of science

2) Ethics of privacy and information

3) Ethics of bioscience 

4) Environmental Law

5) History of Manufacturing

6) Science communication - how to talk and write for a lay audience

7) The impact of colonialism on Africa (not STEM, but my younger did this and it was super fascinating)

Basically, ask him what he wants to study, and design a course around it.  Have him write a research paper on something that fascinates him. If he is really high end, you could do something like The ethics of evaluating risk in large scale scientific projects . My older boy studied that for a term, and did a research paper on the Gulf Coast oil disaster - the Deepwater Horizon disaster. He reseached how it came to happen due to a lack of leadership and due to complex and inefficient governmental oversight. This overlaid with a capitalist motive made for fascinating stuff, and very valuable to a future STEM leader. 

Social Science/ History can be crazy broad.  Link it to his STEM interests so that it is work that he values and is interested in doing. Have the output be small, make the focus on the research and the learning. 

 

This is such a great I idea. Ds has been learning about AI. I will have to look into creating an ethics for AI. How did you handle English with your son? Did you also incorporate STEM into the English classes? My son is taking a high school English literature class and he absolutely has no interest. He is able to do the work and is getting an A in to class. I would like to make English more interesting.

[lewelma]

I absolutely incorporated STEM into his English classes.  This is an x-post I wrote yesterday on the high school board

x-post

As for English, if you are in charge of content, then focus on what will be useful to him.  My older boy is a STEM kid and for English, we focused on him being able to write about science for a lay audience. So we studied and mimicked Scientific American agenda articles and their short summaries of current research, and studied and mimicked the Economist informational style article in the science and tech section. We practiced oral presentations of his science fair research, and how to answer questions from a lay audience.  For research skills, we worked on understanding the bias of different actors in issues like GE crops. For GE, we studied the different language and arguments for Monsanto, activists, Ecological Society of America, and the EU government. We worked to understand how language can be used to influence people.  Point is, do something that he values and will be of value to him. If he doesn't want to do literature and poetry, then don't. It is not required to make an effective English class.