9th Grade Science

[Meg323]

My oldest loves science and math and reads a lot about biology, chemistry, and oceanography in her spare time. This year she is doing Apologia's Exploring Creation with Biology for 8th grade science. I chose it because I liked the student notebook and had heard that it was more challenging than some of the other homeschool biology courses. She says that she likes it but hasn't really learned much. She breezes through the work and usually makes 100% on the chapter tests. She wants a bigger challenge for next chemistry next year. She would be happy to take an in-person course, but the co-ops around here all use Apologia. She doesn't want to take an online course. I'm looking at Novare Chemistry for Accelerated Students. Has anyone done this course at home without any support? I feel confident in my ability to help with chemistry but don't have hours to devote to prepping and teaching it each week. She's a very independent learner and does well teaching herself and just coming to me with questions for science, math, and history. I would like to continue with that model of mostly independent science work next year.

[CatherineS]

I think you are referring to the Novare ASPC book, right? That is Accelerated Studies in Physics and Chemistry, which is the text Novare recommends first before Chemistry for Accelerated Students. We haven’t used the chemistry book, but my science-oriented son was able to work through ASPC on his own with minimal help from my husband, who is a science teacher. Certainly the labs require some prep, but he could handle the day-to-day work independently. It’s a difficult text that I wouldn’t give to just any student for independent work, but for a kid who loves science and has a parent who can answer questions, it should be fine.

[momgineer]

We are doing General Chemistry this year and I have a Chemistry for Accelerated Students book I was given. They are pretty similar. The Advanced one has extra sections in most chapters and a few extra chapters. My daughter is struggling in it, but she very much struggled in Modern Biology too. She has a very bad tendency to just want to memorize steps rather than understand a process and this book makes it hard to do that. You really need to understand the concept and how to apply it to do the math problems. I love the text and love teaching it and I think a stronger student would excel in it. I plan to use the Advanced one with my son in two years. He does bio next year. One thing I will say with any modern chemistry course that you tackle alone- if you took Chem back in the 80’s or early 90’s like I did, be sure you read the chapter on electron energy levels. I was taught the old Bohr model and that is not taught anymore. If you are familiar with s,p,d, and f shells, be ready to spend a few hours learning it yourself first or you won’t be able to help at all! The book explains it very thoroughly, but that caught me off guard. I’m an engineer who loves science and thought teaching chemistry would be a breeze. Ha! But I loved learning the new way and it makes much more sense in the end.

[momgineer]

That should say if you *are not* familiar with a,p,d, and f shells.

[KF2000]

And there is Debbie’s smiling face! Yay!!!!

?
AMDG,
Sarah

[tanya]

I love these new faces! And Sarah, yours looks good. I don't know why you don't like it. You guys are ahead of me. The young people at MP marketing did mine! I'm totally dependent on them.

[KF2000]

I love these new faces! And Sarah, yours looks good. I don't know why you don't like it. You guys are ahead of me. The young people at MP marketing did mine! I'm totally dependent on them.

Did you mean me? My art major daughter helped me with it...so I am not bothered by it at all! ? I think there were some others who were hesitant about theirs though....and I can’t see why. Everybody looks great!

AMDG,
Sarah

[momgineer]

Did you mean me? My art major daughter helped me with it...so I am not bothered by it at all! ? I think there were some others who were hesitant about theirs though....and I can’t see why. Everybody looks great!

AMDG,
Sarah

I *NEED* to grab my art graduate daughter next time she is home and have her use her fancy camera and her artist eye and get a good headshot of me. This one was a quick phone snap my teen did for me. I didn’t even style my hair and I was squinting in the sun.

[Meg323]

I think you are referring to the Novare ASPC book, right? That is Accelerated Studies in Physics and Chemistry, which is the text Novare recommends first before Chemistry for Accelerated Students. We haven’t used the chemistry book, but my science-oriented son was able to work through ASPC on his own with minimal help from my husband, who is a science teacher. Certainly the labs require some prep, but he could handle the day-to-day work independently. It’s a difficult text that I wouldn’t give to just any student for independent work, but for a kid who loves science and has a parent who can answer questions, it should be fine.

I was planning on using the Novare Chemistry Supplement over the summer to prepare and doing Chemistry for Accelerated Students next year. She had excellent middle school science courses in her public Montessori school in 6th and 7th that were heavy on physics and has taught herself a lot of chemistry through reading and using her Happy Atoms set, so I wasn't going to do ASPC. She does math year-round for fun and will finish Art of Problem Solving Intro books this summer, so she'll have the recommended math background. My plan was to do bio in 8th, chem in 9th, and physics in 10th. At that point I think we'll move to dual enrollment for science. Should I push everything back a year and do ASPC in 9th? I wish I could see the books in person before deciding. I know exactly what to do for my language-oriented second child, but the STEM-obsessed first child is way beyond the boundaries of my expertise!
She was curious about the cause of death of a few of her fish and ordered herself all of the supplies necessary to investigate. She did a necropsy, cultured the fluid that she found in the swim bladder, and Gram stained the bacteria this week. Now my reservations about letting her manage the lab portion of her science courses are gone! I'll help and participate, but I think that she can plan and manage.

[Meg323]

One thing I will say with any modern chemistry course that you tackle alone- if you took Chem back in the 80’s or early 90’s like I did, be sure you read the chapter on electron energy levels. I was taught the old Bohr model and that is not taught anymore. If you are familiar with s,p,d, and f shells, be ready to spend a few hours learning it yourself first or you won’t be able to help at all! The book explains it very thoroughly, but that caught me off guard. I’m an engineer who loves science and thought teaching chemistry would be a breeze. Ha! But I loved learning the new way and it makes much more sense in the end.

Sigh. That was my favorite part of chemistry. Thank you for the warning!

[momgineer]

It was mine too. Modeling valence electrons still has a similar mechanism, they just teach much more theory behind it. It’s cool- just caught me off guard with my oldest 10 years ago.

[CatherineS]

I was planning on using the Novare Chemistry Supplement over the summer to prepare and doing Chemistry for Accelerated Students next year. She had excellent middle school science courses in her public Montessori school in 6th and 7th that were heavy on physics and has taught herself a lot of chemistry through reading and using her Happy Atoms set, so I wasn't going to do ASPC. She does math year-round for fun and will finish Art of Problem Solving Intro books this summer, so she'll have the recommended math background. My plan was to do bio in 8th, chem in 9th, and physics in 10th. At that point I think we'll move to dual enrollment for science. Should I push everything back a year and do ASPC in 9th? I wish I could see the books in person before deciding. I know exactly what to do for my language-oriented second child, but the STEM-obsessed first child is way beyond the boundaries of my expertise!
She was curious about the cause of death of a few of her fish and ordered herself all of the supplies necessary to investigate. She did a necropsy, cultured the fluid that she found in the swim bladder, and Gram stained the bacteria this week. Now my reservations about letting her manage the lab portion of her science courses are gone! I'll help and participate, but I think that she can plan and manage.

I’m definitely not an expert on Novare or high school science, but I would just call Novare and talk to them about what your daughter has already studied. Maybe they could send you the Table of Contents and some sample quizzes and tests.

[plb]

I'm using Chemistry for Accelerated Students with my son this year. As others have said, it's a challenging course. The explanations in the text are good. My Classics-loving son didn't like science much before this course, and he likes it even less now.

A major difficulty for us is that lots of very abstract concepts are introduced qualitatively. Your student will have to write down a lot of qualitative descriptions without the mathematical background by summarizing the explanations given in the textbook. For example, hybridization of orbitals, which would required calculus to explain, is introduced without the math that normally accompanies the topic for a thorough understanding. I find that my son is answering these questions without careful thought. However, a STEM-loving student who has mastered algebra and has some geometry should do fine. Lots of written explanations are required. Personally, I try to work through the problems at the end of each chapter so I can anticipate what will be hard and discuss how to do these problems with him preemptively. This takes TIME. It sounds like you won't have to do this. Answers to the quantitative problems are given in the teacher resources, but there is little explanation if you don't already understand it. Hope that helps.

p.s. I used ASPC with a different child. If your child has mastered the equivalent of a good high school physical science, she can probably skip ASPC and proceed straight to physics. Samples of these texts are available online.