As part of The Schoolhouse Review Crew, I received High School Physical Science In Your Home from Science for High School to review.
Science for High School was developed and written by a homeschooling mother of 5 with a degree in microbiology. All the Science for High School curriculum is written with the busy homeschool parent and the maturing high school student in mind.
Science for High School Physical Science Review
High School Physical Science in Your Home contains all the subjects one would expect from a physical science course. They first learn about scientific method, then go on to study the atmosphere & weather, astronomy, motion, force, & simple machines, energy & electricity, chemistry, earth science, geology, along with rocks and mineralogy.
The teachers manual is divided into first semester & second semester sections, along with sections for quizzes & final exams, labs, and is spiral bound. The student manual is separate from the quizzes & final exams, and both are three hold punched to insert in your own notebooks.
The front of the Teachers Manual contains a Frequently Asked Questions section where it is explained how to use this course. Also included is a supply list for each semester. The supply list is listed by week. So you can tell at a glance the supplies you will need each week. I found this to be very convenient.
The information in this course is presented in a different way than most students are used to. Instead of the student reading the text, then answering the questions, the lessons in the student book are all questions. Each lesson has anywhere from five to over twenty questions. The student must then research the answers for themselves, and write down their findings either in the student manual or, for longer answers, in their notebook.
A page from the student manual and my daughters notebook
There is no text book required for this course. The student can certainly use a text book you have to gather information. They can also use other books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and the internet to gather information.
This is a very different way of learning. It took my daughter, 14 and going into 9th grade, about two weeks to stop asking what she had to write down, and feel comfortable with answering the questions herself. She does like working independently and setting her own pace. So once she got used to this new way of learning, she did very well.
Abby demonstrating Bernoulli's Principle, one of the labs, with a straw and colored water. See the green water in the straw? That means it worked. 🙂
If you follow the suggested schedule, students can take a week to do a lesson, including the lab. For example, the student can research and answer the questions Monday through Thursday, then on Friday the student and parent can meet to go over what was learned. The lab can also be done on Friday. There are also quizzes and tests that can be used weekly or biweekly. The answers to these are in the teachers manual.
I really liked High School Physical Science in Your Home. Having my students be able to look up information and put that information to use has been a priority for me. This course puts this goal into action. The research skills learned during this course will benefit the student in all subject areas. And in life once they graduate. I highly recommend High School Physical Science in Your Home. My daughter will be finishing this course for her 9th grade science.
Physical Science for High School is available on the website for $79.99. Extra student books are available for $24.99. Each extra student book comes with a set of quizzes & tests. Copyright does not allow the student manual or the quizzes & tests to be copied. A kit is also available with the materials required for the experiments. The materials required for the labs can be easily found, many in your own home, but they offer a kit to make it easier.
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