curious educator

Plant, animal, or mineral?

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StellarStory
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Postby StellarStory » Wed Aug 15, 2007 4:59 pm

My pleasure! I guess it's the reference librarian in me, I love to help people find what they are looking for.

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knobren
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Postby knobren » Wed Aug 15, 2007 5:22 pm


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Theodore
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Postby Theodore » Thu Aug 16, 2007 12:18 am

The problem is that the (ruling) scientists view evolution as science, while creationists view it as religion. If evolution is in fact religion, giving it special status over creationism is blatant bias. Personally, I think that it's enough to know how the world works, you don't have to delve into the question of where we all came from in a high school textbook - and if you do have to delve, a fair say should be given to both viewpoints, and students should be allowed to choose on their own. Anything else is indoctrination, and it's just as bad when scientists do it as when anyone else does it.

EDIT: I guess that doesn't help much. You say it's science. I say it's not. The two viewpoints are mutually exclusive, and will always be at war with one another. It's just that your side controls what gets put in the schools right now :\ A compromise is actually a loss.

EDIT: In point of fact, I had been debating with you quite a bit via PM, but you were the one who brought it out here. It was your choice, not mine.

sevenkidsisgreat
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Postby sevenkidsisgreat » Thu Aug 16, 2007 4:47 pm

Knobren:

Your original post was about whether there was a niche in the homeschool market for more secular science curricula. The answer is YESSSSSSSSSSS! As you can see there is virtually no high school level science curricula in the homeschool community that is secular in nature. It is all creationist and fundamentalist. Develop away, my friend. There are thousands of secular, non-creationist homeschoolers out here dying for something to spend our homeschool book dollars on!! When will you be going to press?!


Waiting with bated breath,

Cheryl

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seekingmyLord
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Postby seekingmyLord » Thu Aug 16, 2007 7:06 pm

The parents I know who are teaching evolution use secular textbooks. I am curious how an evolution curriculum specifically made for homeschoolers would be better than secular textbooks made for schools?
Last edited by seekingmyLord on Fri Aug 17, 2007 4:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Theodore
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Postby Theodore » Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:02 pm

I used regular (secular) college textbooks when studying for my science exams. The emphasis on evolution was annoying, but I could just skip those parts, as I knew them fairly well already. In my opinion, the secular end of things is already sufficiently well covered.

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Postby phiferan » Fri Aug 17, 2007 8:32 pm

[color=indigo]Hi SeekingmyLord:
I am seeking him, too. I am a Christian; but, I picked secular Science texts; because the style was better for my son. I covered the small section (about 6 pages) out of hundreds of pages in the text on evolution, so that my son could understand the other side. Nevertheless, I taught him that our family does not believe in evolution. As a matter of fact, my son was so smart (proud mom) that he thought the evolution argument the textbook presented did not make sense to him. Throughout the book, various scientific processes were explained with clear scientific data to back it up: observations and tests that can be replicated. However, for the evolution section there was a lot of, “For some unknown reason, we believe this or that happened….Scientist don’t know why this or that was the outcome……etc.â€

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seekingmyLord
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Postby seekingmyLord » Sat Aug 18, 2007 4:28 am


sevenkidsisgreat
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Postby sevenkidsisgreat » Sat Aug 18, 2007 5:06 pm


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knobren
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StellarStory
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Postby StellarStory » Thu Aug 23, 2007 10:55 am


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Theodore
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Postby Theodore » Thu Aug 23, 2007 1:21 pm

Written tests with fill in the blank answers are best for testing knowledge, imho, and computers are lousy at grading those. Multiple choice is too easy.

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knobren
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Postby knobren » Fri Aug 24, 2007 8:07 am


StellarStory
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Postby StellarStory » Sat Aug 25, 2007 8:31 pm


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Postby Dolly-VA » Sun Aug 26, 2007 4:17 pm

Knobren, I thought I'd add my 2 cents to your original question.

I finally found a science program that I think my son will like and that looks like will teach him something. http://www.beginningspublishing.com/ I bought the First Year (middle school grades 7-9) of a two year program. It has a textbook where the child reads a short, directed, no extraneous verbiage lesson two days a week (the parent asks a couple review questions the following days,) and then there is a once a week lab done after the two lessons. All lab stuffs are included in a kit (and the items look good, not cheap.) This first year portion covers physics and chemistry and, besides a couple short paragraphs in the intro, does not mention anything supernatural until the very last page. Unfortunately, in reading the website, I did find that the following year, where it covers biology, does teach evolution from a creationist's viewpoint. :shock: I'm totally bummed.

Anyway, if you could come up with something along the lines of this program, but without mention of the supernatural, I, personally, would be very grateful and do know quite a few others that would be interested in it as well. Yes, the majority of homeschoolers in the US are christian, many fundamentalists, but definitely not all and, I think, the numbers of us beginning to homeschool who aren't interested in some unknown organization's religious indoctrination mixing with our children's non-religious instruction is growing. I'm not trying to start an argument, but at least when one teaches specific bible lessons or studies, there is no question as to what the child is being exposed to. This seems to me to be even more important when the child is of an age to do most of his or her studies without parental participation. In something like science, it should be taught to the best of modern research's knowledge. Then, one can teach their child "this is what we believe."

PS. I also wanted to add the my son LOVES doing anything on the computer. If you had an interactive program, lots of clickables, links, demo's of things (things icky and gooey is always good!) he'd be a very happy camper. Maybe with links to current science news, etc. Also, it has to be written in an interesting manner. The program I mentioned above is well-written for the middle school aged brain. :lol: Amusing without being stupid. To the point. Not dry is very good!

Also, if you'd like to toss ideas at me, feel free to PM me. I'll even get my son involved if you'd like.


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