Jane in NC
01-27-2008, 04:19 PM
When I began this high school homeschool thing, I was told that biology was the easiest of the big three high school sciences (bio, chemistry, physics) to teach at home, namely because of the availability of lab materials. Nonetheless, my 9th grade son began his high school science career with physics, not biology, in part because he wanted to study physics and he immediately connected with Hewitt's Conceptual Physics text. We certainly did not have all of the equipment for home physics lab, but the Hewtt manual presented so many labs that we found we could at least adapt many of them for home use.
Next up: 10th grade and biology. Having been an avid reader of these boards for many years, I felt a certain sense of second hand familiarity with many of the books that are out there. Campbell and Miller are two authors who are praised by homeschoolers and biology teachers, so using one of their books seemed the way to go. Further, my son had a solid biology background from earlier work. He felt that the basic high school biology texts were beneath him and opted to go with an AP text, that is, a ten pound college volume (Campbell).
Should I have enrolled him in an online course? Probably. I think that we felt cocky given the number of amazing biology courses that my son had taken at a summer science school. He understood taxomy, he had performed numerous dissections, he had spliced DNA from a jelly into bacteria to make it glow. He was ready for AP or so it seemed.
I think what threw us off kilter is the amount of biochemistry that is in a standard AP or college basic biology text. And I'm not alone! I am a member of the AP Biology teachers listserv where teachers regularly comment that they were not exposed to all of this biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, etc. until later in college, grad school or at all! Teaching the subject of biology is changing given the quantum leaps that biologists are making in the field. My summer neighbor, a retired biology teacher whose father was a rather famous botanist, feels that the fun is gone from introductory courses which formerly focused on observation, classfication, larger systems. Now, biology is about the cell and evolution. It has become the study of biochemical processes.
Should chemistry be a prerequisite for the study of AP biology? A question often posed on the listserv regards whether the participating teachers' schools require chemistry before AP Bio. Some schools do, some don't. The general opinion is that introductory chemistry classes do not teach much biochemistry anyway so the material is simply going to be a challenge--no way around it.
What about those darn labs? To be an approved AP class, one must do 12 specific labs. Lab 8, for example, requires a large sample for participation, something that you won't find in my homeschool or AP biology classes in rural schools. Are there alternatives? Sure. Someone has a great online simulator for a population genetics lab. In fact, many schools cannot afford the equipment required for the AP labs, so they run similar labs with less expensive equipment. Amazing what you can find on the Internet.
We are fortunate in that we essentially live biology in our normal lives. Our ecosystem is interesting and constantly changing. We get up close and personal with shorebirds, migrating birds and raptors on a regular basis at a rehabilitation center. In fact, my son begins his day tomorrow by assisting in the necropsy of a loon. We spend our summer days in a scientific community with many biologists who are performing cutting edge research. Biology as the science of observation of the natural world remains interesting for us. But I fear for kids who only are exposed to biology as the science of biochemical processes. Something magical seems lost, at least to me.
The bottom line, I think, is that younger children should be shooed away from television sets and game systems to watch ants and bees and grow tomatoes and draw or photograph azaleas. So much basic biology can be understood by an elementary aged student armed with a few good guides. That is the time to hook a child on biology--not when the pressure is on to memorize and achieve a high score on an AP exam!
Jane
Next up: 10th grade and biology. Having been an avid reader of these boards for many years, I felt a certain sense of second hand familiarity with many of the books that are out there. Campbell and Miller are two authors who are praised by homeschoolers and biology teachers, so using one of their books seemed the way to go. Further, my son had a solid biology background from earlier work. He felt that the basic high school biology texts were beneath him and opted to go with an AP text, that is, a ten pound college volume (Campbell).
Should I have enrolled him in an online course? Probably. I think that we felt cocky given the number of amazing biology courses that my son had taken at a summer science school. He understood taxomy, he had performed numerous dissections, he had spliced DNA from a jelly into bacteria to make it glow. He was ready for AP or so it seemed.
I think what threw us off kilter is the amount of biochemistry that is in a standard AP or college basic biology text. And I'm not alone! I am a member of the AP Biology teachers listserv where teachers regularly comment that they were not exposed to all of this biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, etc. until later in college, grad school or at all! Teaching the subject of biology is changing given the quantum leaps that biologists are making in the field. My summer neighbor, a retired biology teacher whose father was a rather famous botanist, feels that the fun is gone from introductory courses which formerly focused on observation, classfication, larger systems. Now, biology is about the cell and evolution. It has become the study of biochemical processes.
Should chemistry be a prerequisite for the study of AP biology? A question often posed on the listserv regards whether the participating teachers' schools require chemistry before AP Bio. Some schools do, some don't. The general opinion is that introductory chemistry classes do not teach much biochemistry anyway so the material is simply going to be a challenge--no way around it.
What about those darn labs? To be an approved AP class, one must do 12 specific labs. Lab 8, for example, requires a large sample for participation, something that you won't find in my homeschool or AP biology classes in rural schools. Are there alternatives? Sure. Someone has a great online simulator for a population genetics lab. In fact, many schools cannot afford the equipment required for the AP labs, so they run similar labs with less expensive equipment. Amazing what you can find on the Internet.
We are fortunate in that we essentially live biology in our normal lives. Our ecosystem is interesting and constantly changing. We get up close and personal with shorebirds, migrating birds and raptors on a regular basis at a rehabilitation center. In fact, my son begins his day tomorrow by assisting in the necropsy of a loon. We spend our summer days in a scientific community with many biologists who are performing cutting edge research. Biology as the science of observation of the natural world remains interesting for us. But I fear for kids who only are exposed to biology as the science of biochemical processes. Something magical seems lost, at least to me.
The bottom line, I think, is that younger children should be shooed away from television sets and game systems to watch ants and bees and grow tomatoes and draw or photograph azaleas. So much basic biology can be understood by an elementary aged student armed with a few good guides. That is the time to hook a child on biology--not when the pressure is on to memorize and achieve a high score on an AP exam!
Jane