Wednesday, September 24, 2008

High School Biology

I decided about a year ago to put a summary of my big teen's course work on this blog.  I want all of his hard work to be in more than one place.  This way, if some tragedy happens to our lesson plan book, I will still be able to write his transcript.  I hope to have all of 10th grade recorded in the next few days, so the lesson plan book can go into the fireproof box.  Then I can start getting 11th grade online.  I have a friend who lost everything in a fire a few years ago, including all of her children's homeschool records.  It took forever to rebuild her records.  If you want to see all that I have recorded so far, click on high school transcripts above.


Biology~


The big teen's main textbook was Real Science 4 Kids~Biology, and we used my college textbook as a reference guide when we wanted to go deeper.  We also did 10 lessons on insects from the Handbook of Nature Study.  He also watched numerous shows on PBS about animals, the human body, and water.


The big teen did many nature studies at local lakes, streams, and creeks about the water and little critters in the water.  He also made a ladybug house and grew ladybugs from larvae.  This was fun and excellent for our garden as well.  The big teen really enjoyed our "field trip" to the ocean where he got to identify many shells and study sand crabs.  On that trip, we also got to go to an alligator farm.  He always has been a reptile nut.  Speaking of reptiles, the big teen learned how to care for a large variety of reptiles at his volunteer job at the nature center.  Did you know that snakes in captivity need baths now and again?  Yuck!  Well, the big teen is a professional snake bather.  LOL!


The big teen also studied the human body.  He made a DNA model, worked on a brain kit, completed a human body kit, and learned how to determine the likelihood of passing genetic traits.  He covered all the major systems of the body and learned how they work together.


The big teen studied 72 slides with his microscope.  He also dissected a cow's eye, frog, starfish, and cow's heart.  He scored an A for this course.


Blessings, Dawn

2 comments:

  1. I'm sorry about your friend's house fire. I can't imagine going through something like that. Still, it is that kind of thing that motivates us to be resourceful. Where we live, we don't have the principle of transcripts but I do keep a record of what my children do. It helps when the inspector from the ministry of education comes calling.....


    I have heard that snakes need (and like) a bath because they start to smell. Pictures of a snake bath please!! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dawn, When you were a teen and your friend Toby had that huge boa, every time he went away to do mission work, his mother, Laurie, had to bathe the snake. She said it was a gorgeous snake and she enjoyed bathing it. What she hated was killing the mice to feed the snake. She had to bash their heads against the kitchen counter. EWWW! Love, Mom

    ReplyDelete