Physics Before Chemistry and Biology?

[tiff13]

But, here it's a little different. 9th graders take Physics and Chem simultaneously. One on "A" day and one on "B". Bio comes in 10th grade. So, essentially, all science credits are complete by the end of 10th grade. Kids headed into a science-based college path will use 11th and 12th grade to take Physics, Chem, Bio, at level II or AP.

Physics and Chem in one year! Especailly freshman year! That sounds like a killer.

I took Chem as a sophmore, and thought it was hard then. Many of my AP-straight A-senior friends found physics tough during times.

 

[Quinn222]

I can see the point. Of course I loved Physics and hated biology so maybe the colours my opinion.

 

[Pam]

At my son's HS it's:

9th grade - Biology
10th - Chemistry
11th - Physics
and this fall he will be entering 12th and taking AP Biology

At his school they have regular and Accelerated/Advanced Science classes. The advanced classes have labs 2 or 3 times a week.

PE is mandatory for all students in 9-12 grades.

 

[paigevz]

Simple. They'll just require us to teach the maths in elementary school.

They might as well, half the stuff they have us do with them now is not appropriate for most of the children.

Did I ever tell you guys what they wanted us to do in Pre-Kindergarten with the rectangle? They told us not to teach the children rectangle anymore. It is, technically, a square rectangle and we should teach them that, because when they got in 10th grade geometry, they'd need to know that.

We pointed out that it could be easily taught to them (in 2 seconds) in 10th grade, but reteaching 4 year olds is much more difficult, and it would be very confusing to them to try to separate square and square rectangle, not to mention that the parents would think we were nuts! No go, teach them this way, we were told.

That's the summer I was asked to move to 2nd grade, and we don't teach 2d shapes, we teach geometric solids, so I didn't ever hear about it again.

 

[paigevz]

A contributing factor to this problem is the lack of PE in schools.

I disagree. The overweight issue is fairly new. 100 years ago there wasn't a big problem with this and there was not PE in school. Kids simply worked AFTER school at very physically demanding jobs, and walked/ran everywhere they went.

I think the biggest school contributing factor to the overweight issue is the food/snacks/soda allowed there. Thankfully, many schools are at least cracking down on the soda/snack issue, though many of them leave high school out of the requirements. The food is still very poor.

Edited to say I don't want to rescind child labor laws, I just think the schools are not to blame for the kids not exercising. We keep being told we have to increase time for science, add labs, increase math time, increase reading time, add in fine arts. If we continue to make time in the school day for everything we think kids need in their lives, we'll need to extend it. That's always voted down in polls. Some things have to be done or practiced outside of school hours.

 

[sulleyfan]

In the local school district, there is a basic physical sciences class that's mandatory freshman year, it's a very basic overview of chem and physics, very little math, very hands on. After that is biology. These are the only two that are mandatory, then you can take chemistry and/or physics in either order or a "senior science" class, which is a general sciences overview, with bits and pieces of many different fields.

I personally took two years of physics and no chemistry because chemistry held no interest and I wanted to delve further into physics, I was lucky to be the last person allowed to take independent study classes in the high school so I got to take a couple different things that were not available, but teachers were willing to work w/ me on.

 

[arminnie]

As far as I am concerned they can throw out Biology.

Amen - I took physics and chemistry in high school and college but avoided biology like the plague.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Amen - I took physics and chemistry in high school and college but avoided biology like the plague.

Not what I meant but funny...We love Biology.

 

[iggbees]

my dad and i, both science people (my dad a chemist, me a biochemist) have always thought that physics should be taught first. honestly there is a lot of physics in chemistry and biology, that would make those subjects much easier to understand if physics was taught first. chem should be before bio, because it's like working your way up. biology is very complicated and as a biochemist i believe it requires great knowledge of chemistry.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

When my DD was in 9th grade she had Physics and then in 10th grade Bio and Chem. My 15yo also had Physics as a Freshman. I suspect that there was a certain amount of dumbing down of the class, but I never had Physics, so even the freshman course seemed hard to me! But in our schools, most freshman are not taking Algebra 1--most are in at least Geometry (as my 2 kids were). They had to learn some math at the beginning of the year to get them ready for the Physics, but then were ok in the math department. My son did struggle in the class somewhat, though.

My 12yo will take Physics in 9th grade, I assume. By then he will be in Algebra 2, so his math skills should be ready (he will be in Geometry next year in 8th grade).

I think what a lot of kids do is to then take AP physics as a senior (which my older kids had/have no interest in doing)

 

[declansdad]

I disagree. The overweight issue is fairly new. 100 years ago there wasn't a big problem with this and there was not PE in school. Kids simply worked AFTER school at very physically demanding jobs, and walked/ran everywhere they went.

I think the biggest school contributing factor to the overweight issue is the food/snacks/soda allowed there. Thankfully, many schools are at least cracking down on the soda/snack issue, though many of them leave high school out of the requirements. The food is still very poor.

Edited to say I don't want to rescind child labor laws, I just think the schools are not to blame for the kids not exercising. We keep being told we have to increase time for science, add labs, increase math time, increase reading time, add in fine arts. If we continue to make time in the school day for everything we think kids need in their lives, we'll need to extend it. That's always voted down in polls. Some things have to be done or practiced outside of school hours.

I don't disagree with you but the lack of PE in school has been a contributing factor in the decline of our health. That is why, at least here, there has been a move to re-introduce PE into all grade levels. Is it enough, no, but it is a start.

There wasn't much art, music and science being taught in schools 100 years ago either but people still managed to learn it if they needed to. IMO, your analogy only goes so far.

 

[Mandabella]

When I was in school, we did Biology-Chemistry-Physics approach. I thought that worked well. It prepared me pretty well to earn a Bachelor's in Biological Sciences degree. I'm now working on another degree in Allied Health.

For those of us with a strong science background in middle school and Algebra I completed in 8th grade, we were permitted to skip over 9th grade Physical Science and go right into Honors Biology our freshman year with the written persmission of our 8th grade Science teacher. We then did Honors Chemistry our sophomore year and then Honors Physics our junior year. For our senior year, everyone who completed Physics got to choose any of these three: Physiology, Advanced Chemistry, and/or Advanced Physics. Since I was looking into Biomedical Engineering and planning on majoring in ChemE and Biology at that time, I opted to take Advanced Chemistry and Physiology my senior year. Our high school only required 2 science classes to graduate back then, Biology and another science. Most kids took Physical Science, Biology, and maybe Chemistry. The only kids taking Physics were Seniors going to college and the Advanced Science students.

And honestly if it wasn't for my solid math skills, I don't know how I would have gotten through Physics successfully. There were plenty of times I wasn't sure what was going on, but I just started playing around with the equations and things clicked. When I got to college, Physics was even harder and I thanked God for my math skills!! Although I do not enjoy math, for some reason I got some skills there....

I really don't have much of a problem with Physics being first, however I think the kids enrolled in that class need to have Algebra I with Trig completed first. Biology is such a broad, broad subject with so many disciplines. It is really hard to cover all the topics in Biology within one academic year.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

I really don't have much of a problem with Physics being first, however I think the kids enrolled in that class need to have Algebra I with Trig completed first.

Most of the kids here have now completed Algebra 1 by grade 8--pretty much the norm. My 12yo had it this year in 7th, which is still considered above grade level, but it's not so unusual like when my older kids were in middle school.

 

[Mandabella]

Most of the kids here have now completed Algebra 1 by grade 8--pretty much the norm. My 12yo had it this year in 7th, which is still considered above grade level, but it's not so unusual like when my older kids were in middle school.

I'm happy to hear that is the norm now, at least for your area. I don't know what they are doing here now. I am happy to report my area finally has a charter high school for Math and Science. I wish it was around when I was going through school. They've got some awesome classes I hear. Sigh...

I always felt we should have had Algebra I in 7th grade. However in my school disctrict, everyone took various levels of general math in 7th grade. We were all given a test at the end of 7th grade, and then placed in Algebra I, Pre-Algebra, or General Math for 8th grade. Sadly, there was only one Algebra I class for my 8th grade year and only 2 classes of Pre-Algebra. There were a total of 10 math classes for my grade.

My DH, his nephew, and his niece (both currrently in college) were not even introduced to Algebra or even Pre-Algebra until they were high school freshman. However, it didn't quite deter them. My niece is pursuing a degree similar to mine, and my DH graduated with an engineering degree.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

Mandabella, the math is being pushed down the grade levels here I think about as far as it can be. I'm not sure what it will be like when my 6yo is in middle school, but the kids have to have the ability to think abstractly to understand the algebra. I think that most middle school students are fine, but they are pushing a lot of the concepts down into elem school. My 6yo is doing multiplication in his head, so maybe he'll do fine, but most kids are very hands on in the early years.

And in hindsight, I should have had my 12yo in algebra in 6th grade since the IM math (Investigations into Math) class he was in was supposed to be the most worthless class that most middle schools in our area have done away with. Not that I'm trying to push him, but if he understood the IM, he would have done fine in Alg 1.

 

[darrose]

My districts high school has the majority of their students take Earth Science in 9th grade. Biology in 10th and Chemistry in 11th.