How many labs? (What is a respectable number?)

[EKT]

Last year, we did biology on our own, at home. It ended up being a great course! I got the QSL biology kit and it was wonderful; we completed 20 labs. 

This year, my daughter is taking chemistry. She is doing the lecture portion of the course through the WTMA and we are doing the lab portion of the course at home. I bought the QSL MicroChem kit, and it looks great, but my daughter is definitely busier this year than she was last year. She is taking other challenging courses in addition to chemistry, and I don't think we'll be able to swing 20 labs like we did last year. What is a respectable number of labs to do? (We loved biology, but chemistry is definitely more of a get 'er done subject for us. What's the bare minimum we can get away with, would you say? If it's relevant, she is an aspiring fine arts major; not looking to go into the sciences in college.) Thanks!

Edited August 27, 2022 by EKT

[Momto6inIN]

We did lots of demonstrations but very few real "experiments". So it probably depends on what you mean by "labs". I would think that 20 real labs with real experimental data and real lab reports would be overkill. Maybe 5?

[Farrar]

Depends on the goals. But many school kids do as few has half a dozen "real" labs where they go through the whole process. The high school year where I had both the kids doing a QSL kit, I can't remember the breakdown, but we did them in different ways. Some of them we did as sort of demos just looking at the concepts. Others, they recorded the data and did the calculations but didn't do a write up. I only had them really "do" the whole thing for a handful.

[Clemsondana]

Homeschoolers tend to expect a lot more labs than many students do in other contexts.  For example, if a student takes a college science class with a lab, they will earn 1 credit (one high school year-long course) for a semester's work.  Labs, especially standard intro labs at big Us, usually don't meet more than 14-15 times at the most, although when I taught at a CC ours did meet 16 times, the same as the lecture courses.   Often 1 of those is the lab final.  Often 1 or more of the labs is really basic and the main goal is teaching equipment usage (for example, a class where students learn to use a microscope and look at a few things).  For college bio labs, it's not unusual to spend a week or 3 working on terminology and math (calculating molarity, unit conversions, etc) with the only work being something like 'track the temperature of water to find the boiling point', done primariily to teach graphing.  Sections like mitosis and meiosis may just have students simulate the processes with some sort of bead set so that the instructors can make sure that they understand what is going on.  

With that being said, it varies a lot by subject.  Another common model that was getting going for some classes as I was finishing my TA years was to have students do a very rote lab one week and then choose one variable to change for the next week (this was a tremendous improvement over the education experiment when I was a student, which was to have us design labs where we had no idea what was going on).  In those situations, students only do 8 (at the most) unique labs since they do each procedure twice.  And, some things are harder to do with experiments (there are great simulations, but not great experiments, for DNA replication, but chemistry titrations can be calculated, done as an experiment, and then the variation from the expected can be calculated).  

In my co-op class I have students do something hands-on at least once a month, so at least 8 times each year.  They do 3 real lab write-ups with lab reports, while some others are just addressed in the homework questions or as a page of questions to complete as they work.  But, anything that can be done observationally counts as a lab - plant identification, journaling daily notes about observed insect behavior, examining food labels and comparing nutritional information between types if students are studying human nutrition, learning something about sensory perception and testing it out on everybody in a group, etc.  Obviously those won't work for physics, and if students enjoy labs there's nothing wrong with doing a lot of them.  But, some programs have students doing a lab every week and, espeically if they are done with real lab reports, that's a lot..  I took a ton of college labs, and the only one that I remember feeling like it had a lab report every week was the semester of quantitiatve analysis, and those reports were very repetitive because, well, we were constantly quantifying things.  Once we got to upper level labs, lots of the labs took 2-3 weeks so there were fewer write-ups.    

[cintinative]

OP, I'm glad you asked this. I was in a co-op lab where we did basically 28 plus hours of labs (we went into lunch many days) and my friend that taught it said that really was a "robust" lab course.  The book I am using lists 36 experiments, including some "observe a ___ reaction" experiments. I think at some point you have to figure out the balance of experiments versus other content.  I tend to really like hands-on stuff, so I really enjoyed our co-op lab course, but I know that it meant the bookwork was all at home (in addition to lab writeups, etc.) so possibly that year was a very high "hours" year for chemistry for those students.

I really wanted my kids to have an experience of "real" chemistry this year with glassware, burner, etc.  but we have already had one experience of a "real" failed experiment. LOL.  My kids do not share my interest in the whys of failed science experiments. They just find them frustrating.  😃 The Microchem kit is nice in that regard--it is far more likely to "do" what it is intended to. 

I look forward to seeing responses on how to/if to balance the experiments versus the other content.

[EKS]

I think that ten is a reasonable target.  

[EKT]

1 hour ago, cintinative said:

OP, I'm glad you asked this. I was in a co-op lab where we did basically 28 plus hours of labs (we went into lunch many days) and my friend that taught it said that really was a "robust" lab course.  The book I am using lists 36 experiments, including some "observe a ___ reaction" experiments. I think at some point you have to figure out the balance of experiments versus other content.  I tend to really like hands-on stuff, so I really enjoyed our co-op lab course, but I know that it meant the bookwork was all at home (in addition to lab writeups, etc.) so possibly that year was a very high "hours" year for chemistry for those students.

I really wanted my kids to have an experience of "real" chemistry this year with glassware, burner, etc.  but we have already had one experience of a "real" failed experiment. LOL.  My kids do not share my interest in the whys of failed science experiments. They just find them frustrating.  😃 The Microchem kit is nice in that regard--it is far more likely to "do" what it is intended to. 

I look forward to seeing responses on how to/if to balance the experiments versus the other content.

Thanks for sharing this! I'm so glad to know the MicroChem kit experiments are likely to be successful! (I've unpacked the kit, but I haven't tried anything with it yet.) 

My daughter will probably take a Botany with lab class at the community college next year (DE), and possibly a fourth DE lab science after that, so I feel pretty confident she will get a solid science education across her four years. But like I said, chemistry happens to be more utilitarian for us, so I'm just looking to do a solid experience for this year.

If it helps, after I posted this, I looked up the WTMA lab course syllabus and it looks like they do 8 labs per semester. I would definitely like to do more than 8, but it was helpful to see that. 

Thanks again!

[EKT]

2 hours ago, Clemsondana said:

Homeschoolers tend to expect a lot more labs than many students do in other contexts.  For example, if a student takes a college science class with a lab, they will earn 1 credit (one high school year-long course) for a semester's work.  Labs, especially standard intro labs at big Us, usually don't meet more than 14-15 times at the most, although when I taught at a CC ours did meet 16 times, the same as the lecture courses.   Often 1 of those is the lab final.  Often 1 or more of the labs is really basic and the main goal is teaching equipment usage (for example, a class where students learn to use a microscope and look at a few things).  For college bio labs, it's not unusual to spend a week or 3 working on terminology and math (calculating molarity, unit conversions, etc) with the only work being something like 'track the temperature of water to find the boiling point', done primariily to teach graphing.  Sections like mitosis and meiosis may just have students simulate the processes with some sort of bead set so that the instructors can make sure that they understand what is going on.  

With that being said, it varies a lot by subject.  Another common model that was getting going for some classes as I was finishing my TA years was to have students do a very rote lab one week and then choose one variable to change for the next week (this was a tremendous improvement over the education experiment when I was a student, which was to have us design labs where we had no idea what was going on).  In those situations, students only do 8 (at the most) unique labs since they do each procedure twice.  And, some things are harder to do with experiments (there are great simulations, but not great experiments, for DNA replication, but chemistry titrations can be calculated, done as an experiment, and then the variation from the expected can be calculated).  

In my co-op class I have students do something hands-on at least once a month, so at least 8 times each year.  They do 3 real lab write-ups with lab reports, while some others are just addressed in the homework questions or as a page of questions to complete as they work.  But, anything that can be done observationally counts as a lab - plant identification, journaling daily notes about observed insect behavior, examining food labels and comparing nutritional information between types if students are studying human nutrition, learning something about sensory perception and testing it out on everybody in a group, etc.  Obviously those won't work for physics, and if students enjoy labs there's nothing wrong with doing a lot of them.  But, some programs have students doing a lab every week and, espeically if they are done with real lab reports, that's a lot..  I took a ton of college labs, and the only one that I remember feeling like it had a lab report every week was the semester of quantitiatve analysis, and those reports were very repetitive because, well, we were constantly quantifying things.  Once we got to upper level labs, lots of the labs took 2-3 weeks so there were fewer write-ups.    

Thank you so much for this thoughtful reply! So helpful!

[EKT]

1 hour ago, EKS said:

I think that ten is a reasonable target.  

Thank you for offering a number! That is helpful. We can definitely manage 10. I think I'll plan for at least ten really well-done labs, and then if we can add in others, I will consider it a great bonus. 

 

[EKT]

2 hours ago, Farrar said:

Depends on the goals. But many school kids do as few has half a dozen "real" labs where they go through the whole process. The high school year where I had both the kids doing a QSL kit, I can't remember the breakdown, but we did them in different ways. Some of them we did as sort of demos just looking at the concepts. Others, they recorded the data and did the calculations but didn't do a write up. I only had them really "do" the whole thing for a handful.

Thank you; it's so great to hear from someone who's used the QSL kit! You're making a good point; we don't necessarily have to do everything in the box, or do it all to the same degree to benefit. (I tend to think in all-or-nothing terms, so this is a nice reframing.) 

[ScoutTN]

My daughter’s tutorial did 6-8 real labs, plus some demos for Chem and for Physics.

[hdollenger]

My two oldest sons have done high school science through a couple different online options, and they typically had 6-8 formal labs that required  full lab report write-ups each year and were given a few weeks to work on each. There were also several weeks where they had to participate in an experiment or demonstration and answer questions or do a partial report.

The most disappointing experience my oldest had was taking a Chemistry course via dual enrollment at the community college. He had to attend a lab once a week for the entire semester and never once had to do a formal lab report. 🤯 So all my talks in his early high school years about how it was important to learn how to write a formal lab report so he'd be prepared for college science didn't come off so well...

[serendipitous journey]

On 8/28/2022 at 2:06 PM, Clemsondana said:

...

With that being said, it varies a lot by subject.  Another common model that was getting going for some classes as I was finishing my TA years was to have students do a very rote lab one week and then choose one variable to change for the next week (this was a tremendous improvement over the education experiment when I was a student, which was to have us design labs where we had no idea what was going on).  In those situations, students only do 8 (at the most) unique labs since they do each procedure twice. 

...

What a terrific idea. 

[CAtoVA]

I've read that 7-12 is an appropriate and feasible number of labs to shoot for for a typical high school lab science credit. Twenty labs sounds like more than enough so scaling back is understandable.

Edited September 8, 2022 by CAtoVA

[lewelma]

Just to be the outlier. We did a single big lab for both Physics and Biology. Each took a month to complete from start to finish, and the write up included a full literature review (so not exactly a lab report, more like a scientific paper). I was very clear on what we did in the course descriptions, and no one seemed to care. 

Also of note, at MIT none of the freshman science classes had any lab reports at all - not for chem, bio, or physics. 

Just saying, there is more than one way to do things. 

[Alice Lamb]

When I taught a mandatory freshman chemistry chemistry course at a primarily science and engineering college, we had 2 hours of work in the lab 13-14 times each semester, but only two formal lab reports.  Most weeks involved extensive calculations from data and often graphing to determine if two properties were related linearly, inversely, logarithmically...  These calculations were done in Excel, starting from a blank sheet. Some weeks were just data collection/observations and answering conceptual questions leading to conclusions about cause and effect, all done on a worksheet-like preprinted form. So, lots of hands-on, lots of calculations, but very little real written reports. More detailed instruction in good scientific writing came in the mandatory intro physics class sophomore year and in majors classes.  Yes, many of our students had to write more formal reports in highschool than as freshmen.