[I still care]

I would be very interested to see how high schooling homeschoolers like their science curriculum.

I teach a coop class on chemistry and biology to homeschoolers, and have been using apologia. But I have to admit I am not happy with it. It’s too “conversational” and very week on outlining and clarity to me. I was looking at Bob Jones, which seems strong on basics.

Within the next few weeks we need to purchase biology. We have microscopes and lab equipment, but I was having trouble figuring out exactly how they conduct labs from the BJU website. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Any ideas?

[I still care]

Wow. That’s weak, not week.

Even though my specialty is science, I CAN spell.

[metmom]

We used Abeka and it seemed to be pretty thorough. We never did do much with BJU. It just wasn’t very popular in our area and you couldn’t find it used very easily. People around here tend to use Abeka. Several I know did use the Apologia, but opinions were mixed on it.

My daughter took some old NY Biology regents tests to see how she’d do and she did very well on them. Close to 90, IIRC.

[SuziQ]

Our kids attended a local Community College for their Math and Science courses. They got their high school credits, and got some college credits which were transferred to the four year colleges to which they were admitted!

The only requirement from the Community College for them to take classes was that they take a placement test. This gave the school a benchmark by which to determine at which level they should start. For example, our daughter didn't do well on the writing part, but extremely well on the Math. Our son was just the opposite. They both enjoyed their classes, and because some of theirs were at night, they had quite a mix of students; some closer to their age, some older, and going back to school to finally get their degrees. It was quite enlightening for our kids.

[Tired of Taxes]

I’m glad you asked that question. I just spent months searching for a high school biology book for our eldest child. Every book I found either was too expensive, didn’t include enough information, and/or included controversial topics that had nothing to do with biology. So, I’ll be checking into the biology curricula recommended here, too.

[Amelia]

There are a number of links to interactive (virtual) labs (and other activities) on The Biology Corner, but for the worksheet type activities, answers aren't given, which may be difficult for non-science types.

The Science Spot says it is a middle school site, but it has some worksheets that are good for physical science (sometimes taught in 8th grade, sometimes in 9th, sometimes at a more advanced level in 11th)...answer keys are given for most worksheets, and there are also some links to interactive sites.