How do you grade labs?

[rwalizer]

Is there a grading rubric somewhere? How do you break the labs down. You might say, for example, "Participation- x number of points, final result- x number of points" and so on. Do you just give them 100 if they do their best? I need an objective way to assign grades. BTW, we will be using Apologia this year. Thanks.

[Cindy in Indy]

3 points for title, name, date
3 points for supply list
3 points for purpose
5 points for procedure
1 point for sketch
5 points for observations
5 points for conclusion
This totals to 25 points, which makes it easy to assign percentage of 100 (multiply points by 4, e.g. 18 points = 72%)

I am modifying this for Chemistry this year:
2 points for title, date, name
3 points for purpose
5 points for raw data
5 points for data analysis (calculations)
10 points for discussion (What do the results mean? What might you do different next time? Further questions?)

Still totals to 25 points for easy record keeping (I teach 6-12 students in our co-op each year). After careful consideration, I am not requiring my Chemistry students to write out the procedure (they could just copy and paste from text if this were a "professional" laboratory notebook). I want them to focus on the discussion: why did the solution turn pink, why were the results different than expected, etc.

I made a lab form for my students for General and Physical science, which I could e-mail you. PM me if you're interested.

Cindy in Indy