Apologia Educational Ministries Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition Advantage Set Review

This post contains affiliate links that will benefit my blog. My family had the privilege of trying the Marine Biology 2nd Edition Advantage Set and the Marine Biology 2nd Edition Audio CD, read by Marissa Leinart from Apologia Educational Ministries for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Apologia Educational Ministries, Inc. is the #1 publisher of creation-based science and Bible curriculum. They focus on Christian based homeschool curriculum. Their products are all taught from a biblical worldview. They have creation-based science, apologetics, language arts, Constitutional Literacy, and resources and books to help homeschooling families succeed.

Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition is a creation-based marine biology curriculum consisting of a Student Textbook, Student Notebook, Tests and Solutions Manual, and Audio CD. It is geared towards college-preparatory high school homeschool students who have already taken Biology. Here students will explore God's marine habitats and the ecosystem and marine wildlife within them. This is the newest and most revised edition, now in full color and with even more experiments. Students will explore our oceans, life in the sea, marine life, marine ecology, different communities and places in the ocean, ocean resources, and effects of humans on the sea. This course, like most Apologia high school science courses, is designed to be completed in two semesters, spending about 45 minutes, five days a week, on the subject.

We Received The Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition Advantage Set Which Includes:

• Student Text
• Student Notebook
• Tests and Solutions Manual

We also received an Audio CD as well to review.

Delbin reading the Apologia Marine Biology Textbook.

Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition Student Text is a hardbound textbook. This textbook has a total of 16 modules and 557 pages that explain marine biology and its many wonders. The book starts out with Apologia's Instructional Support that explains the different learners. It then has Student Notes which has notes on: what you will be learning, about the book, experiments, laboratory equipment, and learning aids. After that is the table of contents and Welcome pages which has scripture passages and things to ponder. Each lesson has colored boxes or colored paragraphs of text that contain: Dive In, On Your Own (OYO) Questions to be done after reading the material, Think About This (things to contemplate), experiments to do, vocabulary words in bold, color pictures/figures and charts/tables, Creation Connection (how what was learned ties to Creationism). At the end of each module there are answers to the On Your Own questions to check your students work and a helpful Study Guide to get your student ready for the tests. At the end of the textbook there is a Glossary; an Appendix with reference figures and tables, module summaries, and a complete list of lab supplies, and an Index to help find things in the book.

Modules:

1. The Oceans of Our Planet
2. Life in the Sea
3. The First Four Kingdoms
4. Marine Invertebrates I
5. Marine Invertebrates II
6. Marine Vertebrates I
7. Marine Vertebrates II
8. Marine Ecology
9. The Intertidal Zone
10. Estuary Communities
11. Coral Reefs
12. Continental Shelf Communities
13. The Epipelagic Zone
14. The Deep Ocean
15. Ocean Resources
16. Effects of Humans on the Sea

Delbin finishing a page in the Apologia Marine Biology Student Notebook.

The spiral bound Student Notebook is a consumable workbook and is intended to be used by a single student. At the beginning of the notebook there is an Introduction. This Introduction has Parent Notes, Rubric for Grading Experiments, Grade Recording Charts, Student Notes, Taking Effective Notes from Science Texts and a suggested Daily Schedule that outlines reading pages, OYO questions, and experiments for the student to do per day. The middle section of the workbook consists of lined pages to take Module Notes & OYO questions, Study Guide questions, and optional Summaries to be filled out by student. The last section in the workbook is Lab Reports and Presenting Your Research: Creating a Presentation Poster.

The Marine Biology 2nd Edition Test Pages and Marine Biology 2nd Edition Solutions Manual are packaged together. The test pages has a test for the student to complete after each module and quarterly tests as well. This comes in a softcover and is in black and white. Within the solutions manual are answers to the study guide, summary and tests. This comes in a glossy softcover and is in black and white.

The Audio CD contains the complete audio recording of the course Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition. It is read by Marissa Leinart. This is great for auditory learners, slow readers, or students with other learning disabilities that make reading difficult. This is an MP3CD so you have to play it in a MP3-compatable CD player or a computer.

I also want to mention that Apologia Educational Ministries has a Marine Biology Slide Set, Marine Biology Dissection Set, and Marine Biology 2nd Edition Video Instruction DVD as well. We did not receive these items, but they would be a great addition to the Advantage Set as well. These items would enhance the learning experience even more and provide a more hands-on environment for the student.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

I used this curriculum with my son Delbin who is 16 years old and in 11th grade now. We did an average of three days per week. Starting at the beginning of the book this got us through Module 1 (The Oceans of Our Planet) and Module 2 (Life in the Sea) during the review period.

Both the textbook and notebook have a lot of  wonderful full color figures and tables that make the learning a lot more fascinating. We also made spelling lists with the vocabulary words from each chapter too. I loved the wonderful lesson by lesson supply list located in the back for knowing what to have on hand for the experiments from each lesson. Having an answer key for the "On Your Own" questions was also a tremendous help to me.

Apologia Marine Biology Mountain Formation from Plate Movement Experiment.

The experiments were really fun to do as well. In Module 1 there were 5 different experiments: Mountain Formation from Plate Movement, Removing the Salt from Saltwater, The Effects of Salinity and Temperature on the Density of Water, The Coriolis Effect,  and The Motion of Waves. In Module 2 there were 3 different experiments: Photosynthesis, Respiration, and Osmosis. We can't wait to do more hands-on experiments.

We loved using the link to the course extras website that is referenced in the textbook. It had a lot of fun third party websites that contributed more information to the study of different things. We loved the ReefVid to see real life videos of different creatures and things in the coral reef, Oceanwide Images that shows cool pictures of marine life, Plate Tectonic Animations, and Coriolis Effect Animations. There was a lot more too.

The Audio CD is very useful when Delbin got bored of reading the textbook on his own. He liked listening and following along a whole lot better and the lady that reads has a nice voice that makes it more interesting. I liked that I was given the option of listening too because I could hear what he was learning about without reading the text myself. My younger daughter, Zari, who is in first grade and does not read much yet could listen as well and glean information from it too.

I love the Apologia Educational Ministries Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition Advantage Set. I would recommend this homeschool Marine Biology from Apologia highly to anyone searching for a creation-based marine biology course for their homeschool. Apologia also has other great homeschool curriculum for science as well that I would love to check out.

BUY IT
Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition Student Text is $68. The Student Notebook is $39. The Marine Biology 2nd Edition Solutions Manual is $22 and the Marine Biology 2nd Edition Test Pages are $5. The Audio CD is $29.

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