Physics 101 (Homeschool Review)

 

Are you looking for a fun way to tackle high school science courses? The 101 Series offers video based courses in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, with a General Science scheduled to come out soon. I received the Physics 101 course to review and it has been a hit in our home!

The core of Physics 101 is the video instruction. 20 videos, each ranging from 20 to 40 minutes long make up the primary “textbook” for the course. For some students—those who want to use the videos as a supplement to another course or students who are younger than high school age—the video content will be sufficient. For high school students who want to use Physics 101 as a complete high school course, the DVD set includes two additional pdf resources.

The Guidebook is a 106 page resource that includes a 2-4 page summary of the content for each video, discussion questions, and a quiz. The Accreditation booklet pulls everything together, with schedules and assignments for video, research, labs, and quizzes. The schedule even includes space to document the required 120-180 hours to earn a full credit. While completing the course, students do a significant amount of research and write reports on their findings. The videos demonstrate each of the labs and the students are then expected to perform the labs on their own as well.

Physics 101 is divided into 7 topics, with 1-4 lessons within each topic. I think that you could complete the topics in any order, although lessons within the topic should be watched in sequence. Topics include:

• Light
• Sound
• Heat
• Electricity
• Motion
• Physics of the Weird
• The Future of Physics

The 101 Series is a family enterprise. The concepts are all taught by Wes Olson, a filmmaker, science buff, and homeschool dad. Filming is done by family members. You would never peg this as an amateur production, though. The videos are top quality, professional films. Video lectures by Wes Olson, animations, experiment demonstrations, and photos combine to clearly explain and illustrate complex concepts.

How did we use Physics 101?

Emily watched a video, read through the corresponding summary pages in the Guidebook and took the quiz orally. She aced all the quizzes, which tells me that the material was taught well. She tried out a couple of the experiments, but hasn’t done any of the online activities or research reports yet, since at this point we’re using Physics 101 as a supplement instead of a full curriculum.

Our thoughts:

Emily loved this series. Seriously, this is an actual quote, “Physics makes me smile. I love physics!”  My original intention was to complete a small portion of the course this year, then to save the rest for next year, but since she keeps asking to watch more videos, I now expect that we will finish it this year!

I think that Physics 101 is ideal for an average student who wants a non-math based physics course. We’ve watched 6 of the 20 videos so far and find the teaching clear and solid. The concepts are related to their usefulness in daily life, answering questions such as “How does electricity get to our homes?” and “Why does light pass through some materials and not others?” Because the experiments are all demonstrated on the videos, students who choose to skip performing some or all of the labs will still get to see the results. All the experiments that we watched, however, were fairly simple. While this made them easy to do with household objects, they seemed more like middle school level labs. I would prefer that the labs be explained in the written course materials as well as demonstrated on the videos. It was sometimes difficult to remember exactly how a lab was done after viewing it one time and having written instructions would be more convenient than having to find and re-watch the lab on the video.The additional research activities in the Accreditation Booklet are helpful for building Physics 101 into a more solid course. This course would be easy for a student to study on his or her own without a lot of parental guidance other than grading or looking over the research reports.

We plan to have Emily do a more intense math-based physics course next year since she is strong in math, but will definitely use this video series as a supplement (if she doesn’t finish watching them all this year.)

The Physics 101 Guidebook includes summaries of each video segment that are work well for review or as a study aid.

The schedule in the Accreditation Booklet suggests additional activities and research assignments and provides a easy way to document study time.

The Homeschool Review Crew reviewed all three of these courses, so be sure to hop over to the Crew blog to learn more!

Physics 101
Chemistry 101
Biology 101

 

Notebooking and Human Anatomy

This month, Emily is working on  Human Anatomy and Physiology as a block-style course in which she’ll complete a 0.5 high school credit in just four weeks. She’s spending an intensive 2-3 hours a day on the subject, but will have the class completed by September.

We’re not using a traditional textbook for this class.  Her primary curriculum is the Great Courses “Understanding the Human Body” series. We recently got a membership to thegreatcoursesplus.com, which is a streaming service that includes hundreds of courses.  Each day Emily watches a lesson or two and writes a summary of the topic in her notebook. I found pages at NotebookingPages.com that are perfect for this. The graphics make the pages so much prettier and provide some guidance on her topic for the day. She’s also using The Human Body Book for reference.

 

I’ve been impressed with how much she is learning from these very detailed videos and she is enjoying the notebooking style of documenting what she learns.

Friday Freebie! Planets Game

Studying astronomy? This week’s freebie is a trivia game that will test your knowledge of our solar system. This game is best for older elementary or middle school aged students, although if your first grader is a whiz with the planets, he might love it as well! Planets, Moon, and Stars

This is one of 15 games that I designed several years ago to reinforce our geography, history and science studies.

This week’s bonus deal…buy The Inventor’s Game for only $1 (reg. $3.50) Or buy all 15 of my learning games for only $15 at CurrClick.

Free Science Resources Across the Web

 

I’ve come across some amazing free science resources over the past few years. Some are online sites and others are actual science kits and materials that you can have sent to you.

• Science Teaching Experiments/Edison Awards Program has directions for dozens of practical and unique experiments, like testing the effects of weatherstripping, building a solar water heater, and a sun-powered hot dog cooker.
• Physics Central is an awesome site dedicated to teaching students about physics. Once a year, they send out kits to teachers (including homeschoolers) that include a comic book with a mystery to be solved and all the equipment needed to do several physics-related experiments to solve the mystery. We’ve done this several years with a group of homeschoolers and really enjoyed the projects.
• The Happy Scientist has some fun science videos for free, and a larger selection with membership.
• Exploratorium is sponsored by the San Francisco science museum of the same name. You can find hundreds of experiments and learning opportunities here.
• Do you have a student interested in forensics? The ACS ChemClub has links to lots of hands-on projects to explore the topic.
• ACS also includes learning topics and experiments for all ages of students to help them learn about chemistry.
• Make your own soda with these instructions.
• Go on electronic field trips at APT IQ Learning Network.
• Find free downloads and videos at Ellen McHenry’s Basement Workshop.
• If you own the Burgess Bird Book for Children, this companion site includes links and activities for each chapter.
• Handbook of Nature Study is packed with inspiration  and ideas for doing nature study with your children. Many ideas are linked to the book, Handbook of Nature Study, by Anna Botsford Comstock. This could be your science curriculum for a full year!

What are your favorite science resources?

Living Waters: Intelligent Design in the Oceans of the Earth (Schoolhouse Review)

Do you enjoy beautiful nature videos? Then you will love Living Waters: Intelligent Design in the Oceans of the Earth, sold at FishFlix.com. Emily loves learning about marine life, so I knew she would enjoy this video, but it even surpassed my expectations. Through beautiful cinematography, Living Waters teaches the viewer about aquatic creatures, in particular, the amazing abilities and design of dolphins, turtles, salmon, and humpback whales.

This video would appeal to a wide range of ages. Young children would enjoy watching the captivating footage of sea life, from jellyfish to whales, even though some of the narration might be beyond them. Older children through adults receive an impressive science lesson on a variety of ocean and river life. Although we watched it primarily for entertainment at this point, there is enough detailed information on anatomy and physiology to count it as an hour of credit toward a biology or marine biology course. If we were to do that, I think I would pause the video at points to let Emily copy the detailed drawings of the internal anatomy of the dolphin and whale.

Through it all, the script points to God as the Creator. By showing the viewer the incredible complexity of the navigational radar systems of dolphins (far better than anything man has been able to reproduce), and the amazing means that turtles find their way back to their hatching grounds to lay the eggs of the next generation, through magnetic imprinting, the viewer is shown that evolution based on random mutations could never produce these results. Salmon also find their way back to the place they were hatched, yet using an entirely different method. The theorized evolution of the humpback whale is discussed, and the problems with this theory pointed out. The argument for intelligent design is not over-emphasized; instead, the producers focus on the amazing complexity of nature, then point out the difficulties with random chance producing what we see.

In addition to the beautiful photography, many drawings are shown that illustrate the anatomy and physiology of these animals. It was so interesting to see and learn about the methods dolphins use to produce sound and to utilize echolocation to not only locate, but to identify, their prey and the direction and speed of its movement. I was very interested to learn that a dolphin chasing a school of fish locates and follows just one particular fish out of the hundreds of fish to be its target. Amazing!

 

Emily and I sat down to watch this video one evening, with the thought that we’d watch part of it, finishing it up another night. However, Emily insisted that she didn’t want to pause it, but wanted to watch the whole film in one sitting. I’m sure that this is one video that will be viewed over again.

Living Waters: Intelligent Design in the Oceans of the Earth is currently $13.99 at FishFlix. It is the third in the Living Waters Intelligent Design DVD Design of Life series, and is preceded by the films, Flight and Metamorphosis, which were reviewed by other members of the Crew earlier this year.

Fascinating Chemistry (Schoolhouse Review)

Fascinating Education offers three science courses: Fascinating Chemistry, Fascinating Biology, and Fascinating Physics. Each of these courses is composed of online lessons narrated by Dr. Sheldon Margulies, the creator of the program. The “Fascinating” courses are different from  traditional text based science courses. Instead of reading textbooks that are accompanied by illustrations, these courses consist of narration accompanied by photographs, drawings, and animated slides that illustrate the concepts and engage the right side of the brain as well as the left.
Emily has been using the Fascinating Chemistry course for the past few weeks as a supplement to her regular chemistry course. Fascinating Chemistry has 19 lessons that cover the same topics as other chemistry courses: the structure of the atom, chemical bonds, gases, the mole, solutions, chemical reactions, and so on. Each lesson takes about 45 minutes to an hour to complete, and concludes with a test. A written script is also available for each lesson. While this script can be helpful for a student who wants to review or clarify a bit of information, I found it helpful as well, since it enabled me to skim the content of the lesson and keep up with what Emily was learning without taking the time to watch the entire lesson.
Each of the lessons features a menu at the side that allows the student to track his progress through the lesson or to skip back to a topic that he wants to re-watch. Periodically through the lessons are “Catching Your Breath” slides and “What You Know So Far” slides that review the material covered so far. If a student prefers to break the content into parts to view on different days, these slides provide a breaking point.

There is an index of each slide at the left of the screen, enabling the student to monitor progress or to skip to a particular topic. Illustrations are bright and engaging.

Many lessons include labs and/or problems to solve.










Each lesson includes a test that can be taken online or printed out. There is no online record of tests, however. Emily had to remember to show me her test score before she exited the page and it disappeared. Taking a screenshot would work as well. While we would find it helpful for the program to keep track of progress and test scores, how it is currently set up does make it easy for 2 students to use the program.

Fascinating Chemistry is not a lab-heavy program, but labs are included for about half of the lessons and include activities such as growing salt crystals while studying ionic crystals, determining the density of copper by weighing pennies and calculating their volume by dropping them in a graduated cylinder of water, and evaluating the effects of heat on viscosity using vegetable oil and dried peas. The labs are primarily designed to illustrate concepts and don’t require the precision or equipment required by a traditional lab, making them easy to complete at home. We haven’t used the labs because Emily is also doing another full chemistry course with weekly labs, but if Fascinating Chemistry were used alone or as a supplement to a course without a lab, they would be helpful and seemed easy to do.
Emily liked that Fascinating Chemistry provided a lot of information and she thought the pictures were very helpful. She did think that the narrator’s voice was monotonous, though. I agree with her about the voice—it did sound rather monotone and dull if I were listening from another room, although not so much when I was actually watching the slides. This is a program that might work especially well with a student who is looking for alternatives to traditional texts.
Fascinating Chemistry can be used as a full course, and it does seem to cover the same content as other courses I looked at. There is a lot of information packed into each lesson! If you are counting hours for credit, though, the course would come up short of those needed for a full credit unless the lessons were viewed multiple times. Even including the labs, I think a motivated student could complete the course in less than two months. For this reason, I prefer to consider it a supplementary resource.
Emily has enjoyed Fascinating Chemistry. She is doing well on her tests and says she’s learning a lot. Even though she’s already doing another course, she plans to continue with Fascinating Chemistry as a supplement.

Fun with Chemistry

This year, we are using The Spectrum Chemistry from http://beginningspublishing.com/ and are loving it. This lab-heavy course includes two lessons in the text each week and one lab. We have a lab group of three students who meet on Friday afternoons for their weekly lab. I’m the type who usually gathers together lab equipment rather than buying a prepared kit in order to save money, but this time, we have the purchased kit (which is really necessary for this course—it includes a huge amount of chemicals and equipment). It’s been such a time saver for me!

The first week, the students learned about lab safety procedures. Although the chemicals included in this set aren’t particularly dangerous in small quantities, the students are learning to handle them safely. Their experiment involved testing the effects of four different chemicals on aluminum foil, polystyrene (packing peanuts) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and discussing the need for using protective materials that will not react with chemicals (such as PVC gloves in some cases).

The second week, they learned to do serial dilution to the point of extinction with a dyed chemical and calculated the concentration, mass, and ratio to water of each dilution.

On week three, they compared the densities of two chemicals by layering them in a vial. Then they calculated the actual density of the potassium carbonate crystal that they had dissolved in water.

The labs each week reinforce the bookwork and involve a lot of precise measuring and calculating—both fun and challenging!  I’ll share more later as our year progresses!

Afraid of High School Science?

For years, one of the biggest concerns about homeschooling high school I’ve heard is, “But how will you teach science without a lab?” The assumption seems to be that a homeschool just cannot compete with a traditional school in this area and that homeschool students will miss out. Honestly, that has NEVER concerned me. Sure, it would cost hundreds of dollars to replicate a high school lab. However, the homeschooler can create a great lab experience with household items and a few purchased specialty items.

Last year, when Emily studied biology,  I taught a lab group once a week using Apologia Exploring Creation with Biology. We did dissection, hands-on activities to learn about cells, extracted DNA from peas, and much more. We also added a 2 month long fruit fly genetics project, which allowed the students to cross different types of fruit flies, make predictions about the offspring, and compare the results to their predictions. The yearly cost was $40 per student for supplies.

This year, we’ll be tackling chemistry. I’m choosing to use The Spectrum Chemistry from Beginnings Publishing, specifically because of their intensive lab content. It will be more expensive, about $80 a student (sharing the cost between 2-3 students), because I’m purchasing the ready to use lab kit that includes absolutely everything we need. It contains 5 times as many labs as most high school chemistry courses!  I’m looking forward to a really fun and easy-to-plan chemistry course!

Are you a mom who doesn’t want the trouble or mess of a lab in your own home? You still have options. You might be able to find another mom who’s willing to teach a lab group or maybe you belong to a homeschool co-op that has science courses. Landry Academy offers 2-day lab intensives in cities all over the US for physical science, biology, and chemistry. These look like a great experience and I plan to have Emily take a biology lab and a chemistry lab next spring even though we do so much hands-on science already. Many online schools (including Landry) offer science courses that include both virtual labs and labs you will do under online guidance in your home.

There are plenty of science courses designed for homeschoolers that don’t require the parent to teach the course. Apologia texts are written to the student and are easy to use. Fascinating Education science courses offer an online, graphic-heavy format. Supercharged Science is very hands-on and fun. Those are just some of the courses we’ve used; there are many more. Science is not something a homeschool parent should worry about teaching!

Read more about teaching science, math, and history on these blogs:

Home School High School Hosts Share this Month:

• Chareen from Every Bed of Roses - Math, Science, Biology and History in the High School Years
• Lisa from Golden Grasses - Math, Science, History- Homeschooling High School 
• Kym from Homeschool Coffee Break - Homeschooling High School - Math, Science, and History Round-Up
• Michele from Family, Faith and Fridays - Numbers and Atoms  
• Wendy from Life at Rossmont - Homeschooling High School: Maths, Sciences, and History
• Debbie from Debbie's Homeschool Corner - Afraid of High School Science?
• Carol from Home Sweet Life - Math and Science in High School ~ What's a Mom To Do?  
• Tess from Circling Through This Life - Teaching High School Math and Science: Resources
• Meg from Adventures with Jude - High School Math and Science
• Gena from I Choose Joy! - Why We Changed Our History Curriculum for Homeschool High School
• Cristi from Through the Calm and Through the Storm - Two Plus Two Equals Calculus
• Laura from Day by Day in Our World - History and Science for High School | Stress Free Teaching

 

Biology: Earthworm Dissection

After months of studying cells and microscopic creatures, we’re finally getting to the study of animals in our biology class. And animal study means….dissection!

Last week, we embarked on our first dissection project, the earthworm. Most students were squeamish, but we fortunately had a few who were willing to jump in. (Note to self: buy gloves before the next project.)

The students all had a turn helping to cut the earthworm and identify its internal parts. Then they made detailed drawings in their lab notebooks.

We had sea stars in our collection of specimens so, although we didn’t have time to do a full dissection, we did have a few minutes to examine the sea star externally and do a very abbreviated dissection. The students found that a sea star is very very hard to cut! I know they enjoyed identifying the external parts with a magnifying glass, though.

Free Science Experiment Guide

Supercharged Science is offering this Science Experiment Guide totally free. I can’t wait to try out some of the experiments!

400 Science Experiment Guide ($25 value)

This experiment guide includes:

• Over 30 complete experiments...
• Defy gravity as you levitate water
• Crush a soda can using a few drops of water
• Make an indoor corkscrew roller coaster
• Stick your kid inside a real bubble
• Grow crystals overnight
• Create and crack your own geodes
• Build a flying machine that shouldn't be able to fly at all
• ...and much more!

Your kids will be so jazzed about science that they'll be begging to learn more. Click here to get the Science Experiment Guide. This eBook download comes bundled with the Rocket Scientist Newsletter, which includes a weekly free science experiment in your email box.

(Affiliate links are included in this post.)