Apologia Educational Ministries is the leading creation based science curriculum for homeschoolers. Apologia just came out with a new edition of their Marine Biology and I received for review the Marine Biology 2nd Edition Advantage Set. This course is for the high school level student.
What I Received
What is included in the Advantage Set?
- Student Textbook
- Student Notebook
- Test & Solutions Manual
*It should be noted that this is not a standard CD. It is an MP3 CD. This means that in order to listen to the CD you must play it in an MP3-compatable CD player or on a computer.
Our Apologia Experience
I have been using Apologia for the past 16 years and we own every Apologia Science curriculum as well as multiple editions of some of them. Apologia has always been our go to for science curriculum. This past spring one of my high school age daughters who is more of the artistic student decided that there was no way that she was going to be able to do the more advanced level science courses. I totally agreed with her and so we settled on her completing Marine Biology. What is nice is that this course qualifies for a full credit of high school lab science assuming that the student completes the required labs throughout the modules. If the student is unable for some reason to do the experiments themselves then you can purchase the Marine Biology 2nd ED Video Instruction DVD which includes every experiment from the text demonstrated on video. Half way through the summer the opportunity to review this curriculum was offered and I jumped at the chance to review it.
What Is Covered In Marine Biology
So what exactly is covered in Marine Biology?
FYI: It should be noted that Biology is a prerequisite for this course.
Marine Biology contains 16 modules which include:
- The Oceans Of Our Planets
- Life In The Sea
- The First Four Kingdoms
- Marine Invertebrates I
- Marine Invertebrates II
- Marine Vertebrates I
- Marine Vertebrates II
- Marine Ecology
- The Intertidal Zone
- Estuary Communities
- Coral Reefs
- Continental Shelf Communities
- Epipelagic Zone
- The Deep Ocean
- Ocean Resources
- Effects Of Humans On The Sea
A Breakdown
For those not familiar with Apologia Science I want to break down a module to describe what your student will be doing throughout each module. Each module is approximately 40 pages in length.
Throughout the module students will find olive green boxes entitled, "One Your Own," which are basically comprehension questions based upon the reading that the student had done until that point. At the end of the module there will be a page with all of the answers to the "On Your Own" questions.
Important vocabulary can be found throughout the module highlighted in blue with a definition. These are important for the student to take not of and will most likely be found on the study guide and on the test at the end of the module.
Each module begins with a little snippet entitled, Dive In. It gets the student thinking about some of the things that they will be learning.
Experiments! I think that every students favorite part of science is the experiments. Well, Apologia definitely gives students ample opportunity to get there hands messy, their goggles on, and their curiosity quenched. Each module has multiple experiments that the student will be asked to do. The experiments are broken down into:
- Purpose
- Materials
- Question
- Hypothesis
- Procedure
- Conclusion
Student Notebook
This is where the Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition Student Notebook comes in very handy. For each experiment the student merely has to fill in the spaces in the Student Notebook as they complete their experiment. This is a HUGE improvement in the upper level grades! My older children had or are having to currently write out their whole lab reports.
The Student Notebook cuts down on a lot of extra writing that a student would normally do without the notebook. With the Notebook the student can now answer their On Your Own Questions as well as the compete Study Guide! At the end of each module in the Student Notebook there are lined empty pages available for the student to take notes. I really like how everything is contained in one spiral bound book. My kiddos, except for Marine Biology, take science through a co-op and this set-up could possibly pose a problem for turning in assignments at the end of a module. A simple solution would be if Apologia would make the pages perforated so that they could be neatly and easily removed for a co-op setting.
My Daughter's Thoughts
When my daughter saw the Student Notebook she said, "Where have these notebooks been all of the years that I have been doing Apologia? Sure now they come out with them now that I am a Senior! Do you know how much time it takes to write out labs, study guides and everything. This is really neat and I am glad that students will benefit from this update. It will make studying easier. It will also help students that are not organized to keep track of their stuff since it is contained in ONE notebook. If Apologia intends to implement this in the rest of their upper level courses they really need to consider making the pages perforated. Since most co-op's use Apologia and students are required to turn in work for each module ripping these pages out would be extremely messy if they are not perforated. I like the ample amount of space that is given for writing definitions and answers. The pages are thick too which is great. I like to highlight and don't have to worry about it bleeding through."
A Bit More About The Apologia Experience
If you are looking for a solid creation-based advanced science course for your high school student than look no further. All of Apologia's science curricula are creation-based. Apologia has set up their courses specifically for independent study. Through the many experiments that are implemented throughout each course your student gets hands-on and visual application that is relevant to what they are studying. Concepts are thoroughly explained in a way that students can understand and the curriculum is set up in order to help the student succeed. Photographs, diagrams, illustrations, and graphs are used in order to teach, explain, and illustrate concepts.
Testing
The Solutions and Tests For Exploring Creation With Marine Biology has you covered. For each module you will find included:
- Solutions To The Study Guide For Module
- Answers To The Summary Of Module
- Test For Module
- Solutions For The Test For Module
I adore Apologia and will continue to use Apologia until all of my children complete their homeschool education. I would highly recommend this new addition of Marine Biology to others. This new addition is definitely worth the upgrade for those that currently have the 1st edition. Apologia made a lot of great changes to the 2nd edition. If you are on the fence about purchasing the new edition you will not be disappointed. I read through a couple of the modules and thoroughly enjoyed what I read.
To read more reviews click here.
Social Media Links:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/apologiaworld
Instagram: www.instagram.com/apologiaworld
Twitter: www.twitter.com/apologiaworld
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/apologia/
No comments:
Post a Comment