Hi. Bookworm the science nerd reporting. I don’t have a ton of time today, but wanted to step in briefly.
There are more secular science books on the market. Some have all the needed info in them. They are usually written by a committee of several people. They are in my experience uniformly dry, and they are rarely well suited to use in the home. Sometimes the teacher editions are very expensive or even unavailable, and the labs are not designed for use at home. In my home, we discuss a broad range of science topics as relating to religion. We’ve read the very simple young earth creationist position; we read evolutionary theory. The very simple manner of the Apologia books in explaining this topic can grate on my kids at times. But knowing the proclivities of the majority of homeschool families, I think most would be more comfortable with this type of book instead of the typical secular text. It appears to me that the new Apologia owners are beginning a revision of the high school texts to include much more creationist perspective. It seems to me that some of this is forced and unnecessary. I don’t know what I’ll be recommending in the future. Dr. Wile is actually trying to put out a better chemistry text as the new Apologia edition has a number of very serious weaknesses. I do NOT recommend Chemistry 2nd ed. I would stay with the older version if you can find it, or possibly Dr. Wile’s new version which I have not yet seen. So far Biology and Physics have not been revised again.
Claire, we have also not been very troubled by the “environmentalist” perspective in these texts. We also read a wide range of opinions on this topic, and find ourselves often somewhere in the middle ground between the extreme black and white sides of the debate. Sigh. This happens to us a lot.
College prep science is hard. I promise you, unless your child goes to a high end liberal arts college with access to courses like “Physics for Poets” (yes, a real course at one school we looked at LOL) that introductory science class in college will be harder.
For Apologia you do need that gray teacher edition book. The answers for the study guides and tests are in that. The answers for the on your own problems are at the end of the chapters in the text. For biology, there IS a study notebook published by Apologia that I really liked. It might soften the blow for that first class. They did publish a similar guide for chemistry, but only for the 2nd ed. which we will not be using, and it cannot be used with the first ed. Also Dr. Wile has expressed to me a concern that students will use it as rather a crutch and since nothing like that will be given them in college, he thinks using these is best kept to a minimum.
I do think Apologia an adequate preparation for a beginning college class. I did myself augment the labs, often with Quality Science Labs, especially for chemistry. But then I love chemistry labs. 🙂 The more the better! Dr. Wile’s newer book for chemistry has much better and specially designed labs (more than 40!) that he has designed to be inexpensive and easier for homeschool moms. Caveat: I have not yet seen the text, I am just going on what he has on his blog and his answers to my questions.
So, in summary. Apologia should be acceptable to most Christian families, although it can seem simplistic if you are serious about exposing your children to the nitty-gritty details of the issues. You have to understand that I was preparing my kids for a good likelihood they were going to study science in college (so far they have both jumped ship to the social sciences lol) It is written in a much better style than most secular high school texts. It has the needed information, an inexpensive teacher manual and labs that can be done at home for reasonable expense. Most secular books we have looked at have suffered in comparison by not being designed for use in a home by a mom. Most other Christian texts/programs suffer in comparison by not being rigorous enough and not having the needed information. College prep science is not a walk in the park. It will challenge most of our kids at some point. IMO this is for most kids probably a good thing. My preference for struggling kids would be instead of going down the scale to a fluffier program, to instead slow down and augment the text. Do more hands-on, watch videos, teach the child to take notes and how to study vocabulary, whatever it takes. If it takes you two years to make it through one text, IMO it’s still better than doing an easier program in one year. Try to give your kids a little idea of just how powerful a window on life on this earth good science can be. Yes, it’s hard, but it’s so rewarding. It’s so relevant. It’s a legacy to us from the God who organized this world, that we can see and begin to understand what He created.
