[asa] Homeschool materials on science

I have checked into various resources for good science instruction, in
particular for homeschool. I think the Miller and Levine Biology text
(publisher is Pearson) is a good one, but I have not yet had luck in getting
responses from them regarding options for homeschool.

Here are some resources that we have recently looked at, which we might use
for our high school homeschool science, at least for supplementary material
if not the primary course material.

See The Teaching Company, www.teach12.com. They have a ton of good teaching
materials on CD and DVD. Many of these can be checked out from local
libraries, or they can be purchased. We have checked out several in the
past on music, Einstein and relativity, etc. In particular, there are a
number of good lectures on science, history and philosophy of science, etc.
We haven't listened to them, but I know the quality of what I've seen from
The Teaching Company so far.

There is also a study based on the Charlotte Mason method of "classical
education", which takes the approach of not using textbook education, but
instead focusing on a broad perspective of understanding original source
material. The material includes reading Darwin, Faraday, Newton; and yes,
Behe and Phil Johnson are included in their list of suggested resources. I
would substitute something else for Phil Johnson, like maybe Michael Denton.
It also has a biology lab recommended at the bottom.

http://charlottemason.tripod.com/biology.html

We also have a Life Science textbook from Prentice Hall that seems to be
pretty good.

Sincerely,

Jon Tandy

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Douglas Hayworth
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 7:12 AM
To: AmericanScientificAffiliation
Subject: [asa] Best evolution textbooks?

Please make your recommendations!

A couple of weeks ago, Pete Enns asked if anyone could recommend a good
textbook on evolutionary biology. People on this list are familiar with
books on the science-faith and creation-evolution relationship, but I don't
remember ever seeing a discussion of current introductory textbooks about
the science itself. I've been out of the academic/teaching environment for
over 10 years now, so I don't know which texts are still considered best.

I'm especially interested in hearing from qualified teachers of
college-level evolution courses (Keith Miller, Dennis Venema, etc.), but
anyone who has studied through a basic textbook is free to chime. Feel free
to recommend both high-level (e.g., biology majors) and intro-level
(non-majors) texts. I'm interested in the whole range, but I'm particularly
interested in books that I could recommend to non-biologists like Pete or a
homeschooling parent (or self-motivated high schooler) who honestly wants to
learn the "straight science", etc.

What are the best textbooks and why?

Reply to the group or to me privately. I'll compile the recommendations and
make a top 10 list of some sort.

Thanks!

Doug

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Received on Sat Nov 14 21:07:44 2009