I recently had an interesting conversation with a little homeschool parents of middle college age children who are within the process of creating plans for high school. Within the process, they raised barely a little questions that I ponder many other parents also wonder about. Since these parents have knowledge of me as their children's science teacher, our conversation naturally centered on science education. Fundamentally, we were discussing 3 things. First, what does a good, high college science learning consist of? And second, what do colleges need to see?.
Science is such a broad topic that it isn't at all obvious what subjects high college students should study. Of course, a year each of biology, chemistry, and physics is traditional, but why? Howcome isn't Earth science, which deals with some regarding the greatest important issues of our day, for example climate, component of that core curriculum? Is it ok to substitute more specialized classes for example astronomy, botany, or forensics for the more general classes? Should students learn only the branches of science that they most enjoy?. There is no clean answer to these questions; the conclusions that people return to shall have as many to do with opinions and preferences as they shall with facts. Personally, I ponder that while biology, chemistry, and physics are all great, Earth science is just as good and ought to be within the spotlight higher than it is. I suspect it gets brief shrift due to the fact that regarding the far-reaching influence of health related schools, which all need applicants to take biology, chemistry, and physics, but not Earth science.
In my opinion, relatively broad survey courses should make up the greater portion of high college science, but adding in one or 3 specialized classes should be wonderful, particularly if they can be in addition to more general classes. If specialized classes replace too many broad survey classes, my concern is that students shall not get enough background facts to formulate an accurate picture regarding the method the earth works. Even though it is undoubtedly likely for students to obtain a good high college science learning in very non-traditional ways, that strategy is risky. Some colleges, mostly tiny liberal arts colleges, should undoubtedly look on unusual courses of learn kindly, but most colleges shall need to look SAT Subject Tests and AP Exams. In New York State, Regents exams shall also be important.
Notably, many regarding the schools most likely to de-emphasize standardized tests are very expensive, so unless cash is not an issue, it creates very many of sense to work hard to obtain some tough test scores. This is mostly important for homeschoolers, who probably should take at fewest six SAT Subject tests if they procedure to apply to selective colleges. Therefore, it is compulsory to include, and probably emphasize, classes that shall let students shine on these tests. The only 3 SAT Subject tests in science a re biology, chemistry, and physics. Doing well on AP exams shall also be a reliable method to impress colleges, so these tests should be taken into account as well.
There exists AP exams in biology, chemistry, physics, and environmental science. Regents, which should be important in New York State and mostly for SUNY and CUNY schools, release tests in biology called Living Environment, chemistry, physics, and Earth science. The parents that I had my recent conversation with have daughters who are strongly biased towards the humanities. They like science, but they like English and the past more. They do well in math, but they do not get many enjoyment out of it.
With this in mind, they are currently considering a two-year program of Earth science for 8th and 9th grades that shall let the girls to take the Earth science regents at the end of 9th grade, a two-year biology course that shall let the girls to take the SAT Subject Test in Biology at the end of 11th grade and the Living Environment Regents Exam, for those of them who shall be applying to SUNY or CUNY schools, and a one year conceptual physics class in 12th grade which shall not be linked with any standardized test. Chemistry is notably absent from this regimen due to the fact that it isn't safe to do high college chemistry within the home. Hopefully, at fewest some regarding the children shall take a chemistry class in community college or at a college that allows homeschoolers to take classes a la carte. This procedure should work reasonable well for this team of kids. They shall leave off to college with some holes in their science education, but they have 4 full years of exposure to data analysis, experimental design, and critical thinking.
Hopefully, they shall have all the skills they should be scientifically literate and all the tests they should obtain into colleges that shall satisfy their needs.
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