Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Apologia Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition Review


This post contains affiliate links that will benefit the blog. My family had the privilege of trying Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition from Apologia for this review to use in conjunction with our own 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 General Science, 3rd Edition by Sherri Seligson is a creation-based general science curriculum consisting of a Student Textbook, Student Notebook and Solutions and Test Manual with one Test Packet. It is geared towards 7th grade to help students transition out of elementary to middle school, and to prepare for high school. Students will explore a wide range of science topics such as earth science, chemistry, physics, life science, biology, marine science, environmental science, science and creation, etc. This is great for homeschool science for middle school.

This Basic 3rd Edition Homeschool Science for Seventh Grade Set includes:

  • Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition Student Textbook
  • Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition Student Notebook
  • Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition Solutions and Test Manual with one Test Packet
Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition Student Textbook is a hardbound textbook. This textbook has a total of 14 lessons/modules that explain general science and its many wonders. The book starts out with Apologia's Instructional Support that explains the curriculum parts. It then has a student notes section about the book with a course overview, activities explanation, lab equipment needed, and a description of learning aids available. Then it goes onto the table of contents. Each lesson has: a “Quaestio” which is basically means question in Latin, "What To Do" sections in green boxes, "Explore More" sections in purple boxes, vocabulary words in blue bold text, color pictures and charts, Experiments located on grid paper, Creation Connections and Think About This in gold text, "On Your Own" (OYO) Questions and writing prompts in dark blue boxes; and at the end of each lesson: Summing Up, Answers to the "On Your Own" Questions, and a study guide. At the end of the textbook there is a Lab Supply List, Index to help find things in the book, and Image Sources.

Lessons:

  1. The History of Science - Search For the Truth
  2. Scientific Inquiry and the Scientific Method
  3. Documenting and Interpreting Experimental Results
  4. Scientific Analysis and History
  5. Earth Science - Astronomy
  6. Earth Science - Geology and Paleontology
  7. Earth Science - Meteorology and Oceanography
  8. General Chemistry
  9. General Physics
  10. Life Science
  11. General Biology
  12. Marine Science
  13. Environmental Science
  14. Science and Creation

The Student Notebook is spiral bound which makes it easier to lay flat and stay open. This is a required consumable workbook and each is intended to be used by a single student with the textbook. At the beginning of the notebook there is an Introduction. This Introduction has Parent Notes, About Not Taking, About Experiments, About Grading, Grading Experiments, Experiment Grading Rubric, Recording Grades, Experiments, Exams, Grade Recording Chart, Student Notes, Taking Effective Notes From Science Texts, and Lesson Schedule. The middle section of the workbook consists of: What To Do prompts, Vocabulary to be defined, Summaries to be filled out, OYO questions to answer, History of Science timeline instructions to follow, etc. for the student. The last section in the workbook is the Appendix with a Lab Report Checklist, Lab Report Grading Rubric, and Image Credits.

The General Science, 3rd Edition Test Pages and General Science, 3rd Edition Solutions and Test Manual are packaged together. The test pages has a test for the student to complete after each module. 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.


Author Sherri Seligson on General Science's Big Ideas:


How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

I used this curriculum with my daughter Teela who is going into 5th grade and 11 years old. Even though this is actually for middle schoolers I think she did well with the content, but some of the lessons took her longer than it suggested, especially since she was distracted with summer. It suggests the each lesson/module should take about 2-2 1/2 weeks to complete, working four days a week for 45 minutes to an hour to work on this so the student completes the course in 33 weeks. For this review we did this for about five weeks starting at the beginning of the book, which got us through Lesson 1 (The History of Science - Search For the Truth) and Lesson 2 (Scientific Inquiry and the Scientific Method) during the review period.

Explore More activity about the distribution of food coloring in both cold (Teela's right) and hot (Teela's left) water.

The textbook has a lot of wonderful full color pictures and charts that make the learning a lot more fascinating. You could make spelling lists with the vocabulary words from each chapter too. I love the wonderful lesson by lesson lab supply list located in the back for knowing what to have on hand for the activities from each lesson. It is super helpful! Having an answer key for the "OYO" question sections was a tremendous help to me as well.

General Science Experiment for Surface Tension of Water

We loved using the link to the course 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 especially loved links on: How to make Ancient Egyptian Papyrus, Model Si Nan of Han Dynasty, Greek Philosophy, Roman Coliseum, The Copernican Model: A Sun-Centered Solar System, Galileo Journey to Jupiter Project, Video about Surface Tension, Medical Evidence in the Old Testament, Mars Global Surveyor photos, online tour of The Lowell Observatory, Mars Rover Mission, Great Salt Lake State Park, etc. There was a lot more too.

Teela reading the textbook.

The Student Notebook is all in color like the textbook. I like that they also have activities that included science Experiments and Explore More sections from what was taught in the textbook. These were lots of fun and were hands-on way of learning the material. Teela loved these the best.

Teela working out of the Student Workbook.

Having the Test Pages and Solutions and Test Manual was very helpful as well. These come shrink wrapped together. I didn't have to print these out myself and had them for Teela to work from. I am glad that these were given in the set we received.

I love the Apologia's Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition. I would recommend this highly to anyone searching for a creation-based curriculum about general science for middle school grades in homeschool. Apologia also has other great homeschool curriculum for science as well that I would love to check out and some others that I have reviewed here.

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BUY IT
Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition Basic Set is $119.

An MP3 audio CD and a Video Instruction Thumb Drive are also available for purchase as well to accommodate all types of learning styles. We; however, did not receive either of them for this review.

Read other homeschool curriculum reviews for Apologia Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition...

Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition. {Apologia Reviews}

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1 comment:

bn100 said...

fun way to learn