Home school chemistry laboratory. How can a parent who is not a chemist cope with lab work?

Question

I have a degree in chemistry and years of chemistry lab teaching experience. I know how difficult it is to teach a chem lab. How is it possible for home schoolers to perform this without cheating their students (children)?

Answer 1

1) Cooperative education classes

2) Community Colleges

3) We have a large pharma company in our area that provides some science / chemical educational opportunities to students

4) One of my best friends is a chemist at a fortune 100 company and we get assistance that way (one of the things that we got "turned on to" is a concept called unit cancellation that is not typically taught until college - look into it).

I thought once upon a time about starting a company - I was going to call it LabRats - to provide hands-on science laboratories to homeschool (and other) kids.  The labs would be professionally equipped (so parents did not have to invest in bunches of equipment) and lessons, experiments, supplies and such provided.  I still think it is a good idea but never and probably will never get it off the ground.

Answer 2

Our homeschool group co-ops the chemistry labs once each two weeks and we have the chemistry course itself as a live,  online classroom 3 days a week. We do have some students participating in the online course from beyond our local support group (Canada, Hawaii, and various states across the US) who make other lab arrangements.

The advantages of co-oping is that all the local families can pool their funds for some good equipment. For chemistry we have all the basic gear (burner, digital scale, glassware, chemicals, etc.) plus a molecule kit. We have a few CD-ROM and video lab resources for the more dangerous or expensive demonstrations. We also have good gear for biology. We have a high quality microscope, disection sets, specimen tanks, insect collection and display kits, an oversized invisible man model (skeleton and removeable organs), DNA model kit, etc. We also have an onsite stream which is chemically monitored and has weekly organism samplings during biology courses.

My daughter tried public school for a few months for her senior year this year because she was curious about public school - this week she is back home BECAUSE she has found she has had better academic instruction at home and with our co-op classes. She took public school chemistry and they never did a single lab. At the 9 week parent-teacher conference, the first thing the teacher did was appologize for the kids not having any labs yet. He said the lab was a mess. This is his second year there and the lab was too much of a mess last year as well. My daughter's Spanish II course was taught by an office worker that doesn't speak a word of Spanish because they couldn't find a Spanish teacher (in addition to that there is not a textbook for the course).  My daughter says they are given dominoes to pass the time. She asked if she could bring some software from home that teaches Spanish but the office worker (babysitter) said that she wasn't allowed to install software on the classroom computer. The yearbook class got into trouble because they hadn't gotten started on the yearbook layouts. The only thing they have done so far is sell ads and take pictures (guess who has been the doer in that much getting done - my daughter). No one would take the time to teach her the class software which she had never worked with before, so she had taken the initiative of photo-editing the photos at home with her own software. I could continue, but I think you get the gist of the local school. You can see why my daughter came to the conculsion that she was wasting her time at the public school and decided to return to homeschooling - curiosity now quite satisfied.

Answer 3

As I've said before, when I was a nurse, I taught patient's families to care for extremely ill people in their homes.   People with little high school experience were able to successfully care for ventilator patients with a variety of medical needs and procedures and assessments in their care plans.  It is amazing what people can do when they are doing it one on one and for someone they love.  Motivation went a long way in determining outcome.  They provided care that would rival some of the most highly trained, and yes degreed, professionals I had ever met.

Most homeschooling parents would not be able to, nor try to run a large lab for hundreds of students.  And some brilliant scientists have absolutely no ability to relate to other human beings on a personal level and so their knowledge.....impressive though it may be......is not successfully communicated to others.  We all have our strengths and weaknesses.  It is when we are able to take advantage of the strengths and learn to work around the weaknesses that we truly succeed.  

Sometimes professionals, myself included, think our skills are much more unique and without rival than they truly are.

Just an aside, this summer we  actually had public school children (up to 4 yrs older than ours)  from the neighborhood join in with us for our biology labs because their in-school experience was so lacking.  Let's just call that "enrichment."

Answer 4

There are a lot of chemistry kits and experiment books out there for things that can be done at home.

I have a nice site for u where u get interested  information about HomeSchooling

http://www.OnlineStudyInfo.com

Answer 5

very carefully ..

Answer 6

I do know that a public school system must allow home schoolers to participate in subjects like PE if a parent requests that, even though the child participates in no other subject.

Homeschooled children are also by law allowed to come to a public school to take the state standardized test during the scheduled or make-up testing dates assigned by the state, if their parents want them to participate in that.

Therefore, it might be possible that a homeschooled child could attend school for one subject, ex. chemistry.

I also know that some universities have programs that reach out to gifted kids, and many homeschooled children (not all) are gifted-this has to be documented through standardized test or professionally administered IQ test.

Also, some home schoolers do get together and form a "club" almost to provide materials or instruction to a group of their children. For instance, if one parent is particularly strong in one subject, many children might take a "class" from them, while another parent might handle a different "class." Or they might go to field trips together.

Another thing you might do is see if a company has a "museum" or "exhibit" that might be able to demonstrate the standards you are hoping to teach in some science fields. I don't know about chemistry, but a children's museum type of idea for older children.

Finally, you might be able to create a chemistry lab by buying a few select materials (beakers, pippettes, etc.) and chemicals. After all, everything you see, touch, and breath is actually chemistry. Maybe you could share the expense with other homeschoolers if it is too prohibitive.

Good luck. I didn't take chemistry until after college for the first time and I absolutely loved it and wished I'd been exposed to it in high school, I might have been a chemist. But I'm (probably obviously) not.

Answer 7

I have home schooled three children but none has ever needed chemistry. I wounder if there are books which teach the techniques you mentioned. These seem like valid points. I took chemistry in high school and college and know how valuable a teacher who knows what he or she is doing can be.

It should be possible for a chemist who cares about home schooling to help plan the kinds of laboratory experiments that are needed and include the special tricks or tips which should be learned.  I don't know how special equipment might be purchased but I an talkingto parents in my local home schooling organization to see what we can do.

Answer 8

This can be done by :

- Joining some regular evening classes for learning the things.

- Can employ an expert on part time basis for learning/teaching the intricacies;

- Hiring services of service providers on periodic basis.

Answer 9

You cannot tell me that you have not seen ps kids who were not prepared for university/college chem.   Not every kid comes out of ps perfectly prepared for college just like not every hs kid does.

I don't get the we vs. us mentality.

Your question, like so many others on here, assumes that homeschoolers sit around their home and never leave.  Never talk to anyone else and could never ever get outside help.

I am not a science major.  I HATE science.  Right now we have science programs that are working for my kids because it comes with a kit for the entire year with everything we need.  I'm learning about the science right along with my kids.  Science that no ps teacher was ever able to get me interested in.  

If we can't figure it out from the books in hand we head to the internet.   If we want to go further we talk to my husband when he gets home since he loves science and is an engineer.  

There are so many ways for homeschoolers to do chemistry, biology, etc.

We can get frogs to dissect by ordering them.   We can go to homeschool classes, co-ops, find friends who know the subject better then we do, order chem materials from many different places.  

I cannot wrap my head around why people find this so difficult to understand.

Answer 10

Richard, I'm way out of your league when the subject involvement is chemistry. I did like chemistry in High School and the chem lab was state of the art at my School. It had to be for safety reasons. You, having yrs. of experience teaching lab, know how dangerous chemical science can become if not properly taught by a professor and or teacher of your caliber. There's no way  home schools can teach students chem lab.Where are the home school parents who know nothing about chemistry, think they're going to make a chem lab? the home garage with no ventilation system or chemical Fire system in place, emergency water flushing sinks etc...Richard , wouldn't that be against the Law trying to put together a chem lab in any residential house? Like you say, the only one being cheated out of a good education are the children.

Answer 11

We take a very simple approach; our first two children did not need any science courses past advanced biology for their career choices; actually they had more science credits than they needed, so chemistry was not an issue.

If the others would like to take chemistry, they can take it at a local community college while they finish the rest of their high school program at home.

Many science courses, labs, and experiments can very easily be done at home; there are several companies who will put together a kit for you.

We can buy the same supplies, including specimens as the schools do, and good microscopes can be purchased for as little as $400.00 to $500.00.

Answer 12

It's not that hard. Any parent who is involved enough to homeschool will be able to figure out chemistry, and the supplies can be found here

http://www.hometrainingtools.com/catalog...

I have a personal story that might work here. In high school, I had a lot of trouble with chemistry. One month in, I didn't understand anything the teacher was saying. She even told my mom on parent night in front of the class that I had the lowest grade in the entire school ( I think it was 38%) . Nice. After that, I asked to be transfered to another teacher. Within two weeks, my grade was up to a 'C'. The difference? The teacher taught in a manner that worked to my learning style. She didn't tell me it was too hard. She didn't assume (as did the first teacher) that I just couldn't understand it. Unfortunately, I never got above a 'C' in high school chemistry (granted, it was a math and science magnet school), because I already engrained the idea that it was too hard.

Got to college, went in with the same feeling. Got a 'C' in basic chemistry. Went to Organic Chemistry, got an 'A'. Best teacher I ever had. After that class, all the rest made more sense. Maybe, when I was struggling with basic chemistry, if I had been able to look at organic chem, it would have all made sense twenty years ago. But schools can't do that. They have to go in order, and teach what they are told to teach.

Now, I love chemistry. It all makes sense, and once the book work makes sense, the lab is easy. I'm sorry that you find it difficult, but teaching a large number of kids is much different than teaching one or two. We can focus on that child, instead of mass instruction. We can figure out experiments in our own time, without the struggle of putting it into a school schedule and two hour time slots. I think my son actually benefits from this, because he can take the time to figure it out, rather than just have a teacher tell us what's going on. He can set everything up himself, and clean everything himself. At 12, he's already balancing equations and can figure out in his head what the reactions will be.

Answer 13

Richard, I home schooled my daughter, and not my son.

I can only speak for the two high schools in my area. One had an alcoholic Chem teacher, that passed anyone who was there most of the days. The other taught so far above the student's heads, that they learned very little that was useful. Thankfully, our Junior College filled in the gaps.

Our school district offered any supplies that home schoolers needed. I was able to get the same curriculum as was taught in the public schools. I only used them for math, chem and American History.  I developed the rest of the curriculum.

Admittedly, my daughter didn't get good lab experience, but a had a general knowledge of chemistry, and the hands-on that could be learned from a quality home chemistry set.

Her education, as a whole, was far superior to what she would have received in public school.

For instance our goat was having problems delivering her kids. My daughter lubed her arms, reached in between the contractions, discovered that the first baby was presented wrong, pushed it back further in, turned it, and delivered it!

And helped the tired and stressed goat deliver two more kids.

This was when she was 13, when most other girls were giggling and primping in front of the mirrors.

I think she had a much better biology education than would have been learned in public school.

I think the pros far outweighed the cons.

Our district had a group of home-schoolers, meeting every Tuesday for accountability. We had a school principal that offered guidance, looked over the week's work and approved lesson plans. The kids met for social events, and field trips.

Answer 14

We are talking about high school, right?  Teaching a high school lab is not difficult.  It is very easy when you only have one student and not having to observe several teams.  Our small rural school does not use one experiment for one student the way that we can teach in homeschool.

I'm not putting your education down and I'm sure it would be great to have you as a teacher for chemistry.  I would not like to have to raise my hand and wait for you to get around to our team while you are working with a team on the other side of the room, or cleaning up a mess, or dealing with a 'goof off'. . ...or if you were out sick that day and we had a substitute teacher who majored in music.

I'll stick with homeschool. (smile)

Answer 15

Well, the program or book is supposed to do that.

It's supposed to set up an experiment with materials and then you do it.

I don't personally know IF any of them do it, but that is how it is supposed to be done.

If I were writing a book and had an accredit class and you were supposed to turn in work I'd do a chapter on electrical bonding and then give a simple lab experiment.

Go to the hobby shop and buy a bottle of Copper Sulfate and either some Zinc Strip to go to Radio Shack and get a small spool of solid Nickle wire and a 9 volt battery and a battery cap with wires.

Dissolve the copper sulfate into a small beaker or drinking glass with no more than 6 ounces of water, mix throughly.

Cut the Zinc strip in half or cut two 1' sections of nickel wire and strip off several inches from both sides of insulation.  

Connect the leads of the battery to each section.  Place them at opposite sides of the glass dipping half the bare nickel wire or zinc strip into the solution and wait two minutes.

Make not of any reaction you observe inside the liquid in the glass on your lab report sheet.

After the time has elapsed remove the wire or strips from the water and detail what you see on both strips.

Attach the wires or strips to the lab report and send it in.

Of course, as a chemisty YOU know exactly what will occur, but they don't.  They might suspect, but they don't know.

So you do the experiment and write down what you see.

Then you ask them to say why they think what they saw occured and how it relates to the chapter in the book they read.

That's you're lab experiment.

A lot of it can be done with hobby shop stuff.

I suppose you can substitute copper strip or copper wire and use household table salt and get similar results.

In fact (while I've never done THAT experiment) if my view is correct I'd use that as a second experiment.

Now if you want to get techical you have them explain what happens chemically, but you need to write information on how to dervie that in the book

OR you can send that to them after they turn in the experiment and give them a detailed explaination of the breakdown and what occurs chemically in the water and to the metals and the resulting changes in the solution.

A lot depends on if this is 12th grade chemistry or 6th grade chemistry.

There are hobby shop chemicals you can buy to qualitative and quantitive experiments.  Liquids that render a pigmented solution clear after enough of the liquid is added.  You need to figure out precisely how many grams to chemical to put into how many ML of water and then you set a drip (that requires buying some lab equipment) and count the drips.  You measure the liquid before and after and determines how many ML of the solution was required to turn the pigmented solution clear.

You have to devise experiments that are readily available to the homeschool student.

As one biology home school student pointed out you can't do live frog work easily.  Not even YOU can walk into a supply house and buy a jar of Ether, but it is readily available to a school system.

Answer 16

talk to the school department

Answer 17

Many homeschoolers pool their resources, especially at the high school level, and use a co-op for lab-type classes (bio, chem).  Also, there are many excellent programs available that include some type of lab work.

I am not quite to the high school level yet, so I'm not exactly sure what we'll do, but could you tell me please what labwork is really necessary in high school that can't or won't be covered in college?  Since I wasn't studying a hands-on science curriculum in college, I never took another "lab" course after high school.

Answer 18

Unless a child being home schooled is going to become a chemist, then what does it really matter....It does not, most home schooled kids, lack social interaction & basic knowledge that kids from public school get naturally.

Answer 19

I never found lab work in school benefcial whatsoever. The only thing that matters is the text material. lab work just calls for fun stuff to keep the interests up. I work in a chemical lab myself and someof the stuff I remember doing in school can easly be done in a kitchen. its not like schools use anything hazardous that's heavily regulated. There are kits you can buy to make crystals which is still being done, anything using a bunsen burner can be done on the stove top with adult supervision. Actually kits exist at the Scholastic book stores for just about any science experiment. No one is really cheated out of anything.

Answer 20

It is just NOT possible. It requires qualification, experience, and a license. Without valid license, a person making a chem lab of his own, and further trying to teach children, can be prosecuted by law.

Answer 21

I was recently talking to the mom of a child who just started high school and is taking chemistry. She says that her daughter is finding extremely dull as there is no lab work at all. I was shocked to hear this as I'd always thought that there was loads of lab work in high school.

Before she went to highschool this girl was taking chemistry lessons with a tutor. There is no reason why homeschoolers couldn't take lessons with a tutor and do lab work there. And even if they didn't if all high schools do such minimal lab work homeschoolers aren't missing anything.

Answer 22

Ditto, it is just not that hard. And as far as "cheating" the students, I seriously hope you ask the same question of highschool teachers. I took chemistry in public highschool and it was taught, and the lab was conducted by our highschool basketball coach (i got an A btw). In college my chemistry theory class was taught by a chem professor (so boring, giant auditorium, hundreds of students, you couldn't even ask questions) but the lab was taught by a teaching assistant. That assistant did not have a degree in chemistry and in fact they conducted the experiments and such right from the book,.

My daughter has a friend that attends public highschool (please note the socialization with the "real world"!). She was visiting over the weekend and noticed my sewing machine set up in the living room. She asked if I had any empty spools she could have. Why? "we have a project in IPC (integrated physics and chemistry, sophomore level class) that we are working on and I need four spools. We are building cars out of jello boxes and using the spools for wheels."

My daughter and I got a big kick out of that, but we did not laugh in front of her.

Every homeschool science lab I have been a part of has been literally hundreds of times more interesting and more relevant that anything I ever experienced in the public schools, from first grade geology hands on classes to IPC and beyond (I've had the opportunity to assist in some of the labs, observe in others).

And I have to tell you, the homeschool students in the IPC class in our teaching co-op were not wasting time make jello box cars, the parents would not stand for that level of work from highschool students. First graders, yes, absolutely, but sophomores? Hardly.

In addition to participating in teaching co-op labs, I, like many other parents, have set up countless science experiments in our own home, and we have had a ball, learned a lot, and these special times with my kids have sparked desires in them to learn more about science than anything else they have been involved in.

Have we made mistakes and had failed experiments and such? Absolutely. Did we blow up the house? Nah.

And as my kids would tell you if they could "even when it doesn't turn out the way you expect, it is still science."

In response to your additional details, I believe the poor condition of our public schools is extremely important in this question, because your original statement was concerned with students being cheated.

In my opinion, more public school students are being cheated than homeschool students for the exact reasons I, and others have pointed out.

and to ask your additional question, no, "specialists" are not needed. Like we said, it is not difficult to do, you just have to possess the ability to think outside the box.

Answer 23

Yes, a home school specialist program taught by a professional is a valuable service.  

We enrolled our homeschoolers in the Discovery Museum classes as much as possible. It was worthwhile training. We also had them attend the Art Museum classes, and many other opportunities that we found at various public facilities.

Answer 24

First of all, there are a LOT of chemistry kits and experiment books out there for things that can be done at home.

Second, there are various programs out there that can be used that include video demonstrations.

Third, I don't know about where you live, but where I live, the students often only get to do one or two chem labs a year, IF they're lucky. They will get a few demos. There is simply too much in the provincial curriculum to do, not to mention that a lot of the classes simply have too many students--and we don't hire lab assistants here. I've actually attended a session where a high school chem teacher told a homeschooling mom, who had asked if she should send her son to school for chem, that she can do the necessary lab work at home and that the students often don't get lab work where we live so homeschooled students aren't really missing out. She also said that as long as they do any sort of simple lab work, with learning how to follow procedures, make observations and write up reports, they will be totally fine for college-level chem courses.