Update on Update on BFSU

Ok, I have posted my list of Discovery Education video links, correlated to BFSU lessons. It does not have all the lessons, even from just the first volume, but at least it's something! I will try to add to it over time. Click here to see this list, or click on "BFSU Links" above, under the title bar.

Update on BFSU

For science this past year, we started (finally) using Nebel's BFSU (Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding) curriculum. I last wrote about this back in December of 2011, so I need to give an update.

I still really love this curriculum, and think it is wonderful and comprehensive and accurate. It is a good fit for a more exploratory, hands-on style of learning, and is easily adapted to add more (or less) writing, books, videos, etc. It does take a bit of teacher preparation, depending on how much you want to add and how much you already know about science. If you're fairly competent at basic science, at least, then you could probably just open it up to a lesson and go through it with your kids, finding materials as you go for experiments or demonstrations, at least for most of the lessons. A little more preparation, like reading through the lesson first, will let you be more polished and cohesive in your lesson. And with a little more preparation, you can find videos and books to go along with the lesson to reinforce things and offer a different perspective. A few lessons will probably need materials you might need to get at a store or even order ahead of time.

We have a subscription to Discovery Education (through the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op), and so I decided to find videos to link to each lesson, covering at least a similar topic. I made my list into a file and put it on the kids' computer, so they can just open it up, click on the link they want, and watch the video. Sometimes the videos cover more than the BFSU lesson, or cover topics in a different order, or in some way aren't a complete match, but it still was very useful for my kids. They really love documentary-type videos. I plan to put my list on here soon for others to use, for at least the lessons I've done so far. I'm sure there are other sources of good videos too.

We did run into some problems using BFSU, though. The main issue was that my oldest, who is 8, got bored too quickly when I kept things at a level my 5 and 6 year olds could handle. She considered most of it to be below her (and a lot of it was, since she's done a lot of science already), and didn't really appreciate being lumped together with her younger siblings. I ended up just focusing the lesson on my younger children, and let her sit in the background doing whatever she wanted. I found that even though I told her she didn't need to participate, she still listened, especially when we covered something she hadn't heard before, or when we did an experiment or demonstration. It still didn't stimulate her as much as I would like, and I think she didn't get enough science this year (other than the resources she searched out herself - our bookshelf, and videos).

So, for next year, I will split them up, and do 2 different science classes - one for my oldest, and one for the younger 2. They may still listen to each other's lessons, but that will just be their choice.

Another issue was due mostly to me. I had a hard time scheduling lessons. I guess I need more structure. The free-flow method of BFSU - just picking a lesson to do next - didn't inspire me to prepare well enough. I did good at first, but then, especially as Rebekah zoned out, we did fewer and fewer lessons. I even had made a list of what order to do the lessons in, but we got sidetracked by other subjects too much, and science got pushed out. I think only scheduling it once a week was not good for us, since it was too easy to say, well, since we're busy/tired/bored, let's just do it a different day.

So, another change for next year is that I'm going to use something else as the main structure of our science plans, and just use BFSU to fill in where relevant. I'd still like to use most of BFSU, but we're going to try it differently this year, at least.

For my younger two, we are going to follow the schedule of Sonlight Science A, since I will be doing the Bible and history part of Core A with them this next year already. I will try to find which BFSU lessons might fit in with different topics, or we might just do BFSU on the side, when desired.

For my oldest, I asked her what main science topic she'd like to study this next year, and she said chemistry. So, I have pulled together a plan that combines many different resources, and will will do that 2-3 days a week. I have gotten a few chemistry experiment kits for us to do, and I will also go over the BFSU chemistry-releated lessons from Book 1 and Book 2, covering pre-requisites as needed. Other resources I am using are the sample lessons from R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey's Chemistry 1 course, Intellego Chemistry 1 and 2 for grades 3-5, and a selection of books from NOEO and Sonlight chemistry courses. I've made a lesson plan for the year, scheduling which chapters from which books and which experiments to do when. (I do like planning, I think I've said before.) I will make this plan available at some point, but I think I should go through it with my daughter this year first, since I'm sure we'll make changes along the way.

So, that's the plan, and my updated review of using BFSU. I will try to write more posts about science this next year as we get into it!

Sunflowers

We grew sunflowers this summer - giant ones. Then we read about how to dry them and harvest the seeds. My husband did most of the work, but we are just now getting to the part where we remove the seeds from the dried flowers and use them for something.

We have still been doing bird studies for science (almost done), and we recently made bird feeders out of empty milk jugs. So our plan is to put the sunflower seeds into the bird feeders. The kids have all been rather excited about it, especially making the bird feeders (one for each - fortunately, we drink a lot of milk, so just happened to have 3 empty milk jugs handy).

But after the initial excitement of figuring out how to get the seeds out of the dried flowers today, my 2 younger ones have given up rather quickly. It is hard work, separating the seeds from the rest of the flower. My oldest is still outside, but the younger 2 have come in to play play-dough. It is rather warm outside still, I have to admit. We are eagerly awaiting the cold front that is supposed to come through Saturday night, bringing highs only in the high 70s (and lows in the 50s!)

 We've had some other excitement lately. My husband found a puppy on the side of the road near our house two days ago, and we have not been able to find the owner. We might be willing to keep it, but it looks like a Rottweiler, and we're not sure we really want that breed of dog. So we're searching for someone who might want him....

My middle child came down with a stomach bug yesterday morning too, but fortunately, it only lasted a few hours, and she is fine now. My youngest came down with a fever and a cough almost 2 weeks ago. His fever only lasted a day too (of course, the day we had a really good field trip planned), but the cough is only now gone.

And on top of all that, my husband has been furloughed without a job since Tuesday, when the government shut down. It is handy to have him home for a few days, but I think we'd both prefer it if this was just (paid) vacation time and not forced, unpaid time off. Fortunately, we have enough savings to last us for a while, but not forever....

Three Views on Creation and Evolution

I finally finished reading Three Views on Creation and Evolution. I bought the Kindle version over a year ago, on recommendation from a fellow church member and scientist, to help me understand the three main views of Christians: young earth creationism, old earth creationism, and theistic evolution. There are other names for those 3 views, but those are probably the most common ones. There are also wide variations within those 3 views too, as everyone seems to have a slightly different take on things. The book has 3 main articles, one for each of the views, written by someone who believes in each view. The articles mostly explain each viewpoint, and give various thoughts about why they believe it. There is some loose similarity in the outline of each article, imposed by the editor, but the authors write with such different styles, and emphasize such different points, that the articles are really quite different from each other. Then there are 3-4 reactions to each article, written by people who mostly believe differently than that article's author. These "responders" are all different people than the 3 main article writers - I wish the editor had let each of the 3 respond to each other's articles, but I suppose they wanted even more viewpoints.

I found the book to be extremely interesting, though a little heavy reading, mostly because I kept making notes on everything that I disagreed or agreed with. (I really like the ability to take notes on a book with Kindle, by the way, though it takes me a lot longer to type with the little keyboard.) I found the discussion enlightening, too, since up until a year and a half ago, I hadn't ever heard anyone argue for a young earth. There were some new thoughts in all of the articles for me, some of which I have ruminated over quite a bit now.

I found the young earth article (the first one) to be the least convincing, probably because that is the viewpoint I disagree with most. But I also found many of the arguments to have logical faults. That is the article I probably made the most notes on, as with every logical fallacy made, I just had to make a comment. It was interesting that they admitted that pretty much all scientific data contradicts a young earth theory. It was also not nearly as accusative toward the other viewpoints as I have often heard other young earth proponents be, however, so I appreciated that. In fact, the whole tone of the book was much more cordial than most discussions of this controversy, though a few negative comments (about their opponents) slipped in here and there. The article on old earth, or progressive, creationism probably gave me the most thoughts to contemplate. The article on theistic evolution was by far the most thorough and precise.

[As a side note: I do not have a strong background in biology (I mostly studied physics and astronomy), but I am now inspired to study it more on my own. I think I'll start with a high school text I have handy, and then move on to some of the college material available online. I need to get up to speed before my kids get there, after all!]

I think I fall somewhere in between the viewpoints of the last 2 articles: old earth creationism and theistic evolution. Both made interesting philosophical points, but of course, philosophy cannot prove which viewpoint is the truth. You cannot really prove which Biblical interpretation is the absolute truth either. There really is no way to prove absolutely which viewpoint is the truth, other than going back in time and watching it all happen, or else waiting for God to tell us in heaven. You can decide which viewpoint is more likely, given the scientific data.  Science helps us understand physical reality (as we understand it) - it doesn't cover supernatural intervention, obviously. (And by the way, a "natural" event doesn't mean God had nothing to do with it - it just means it was an event that follows the physical laws we have understood to date.) There really is no way to prove with science what God has done supernaturally. It's like trying to use science to show how a group of worms made a home out of twigs and leaves when actually a little girl came by half an hour ago and made it for them. Perhaps the worms were capable of doing it themselves, but unless she confesses, you might never know how it really happened. (This is not a perfect analogy, so don't try to read more into it!)

My analogy brings up another point, though (in a roundabout way): even if humans evolved from teensy, tiny life forms in the beginning, at some point, I believe God breathed His spirit into us, separating us from all other life forms.  Evolutionists don't have to disbelieve in Adam and Eve. Humans are different than animals (despite some who claim we're not). Our souls are the fingerprint of God. Even if the human form evolved from earlier apes, I believe God chose a single moment in time and a single human-like creature into which He breathed His spirit. God could have created that being at that moment in time, apart from the evolutionary family tree, or He could have taken a special specimen from that family tree and made him at that moment to take on the image of God, creating a true human. I don't think it really matters how God did it, how He created humans. I believe that He did.

I wish it weren't such a controversy among Christians, because that strong, sometimes accusatory and bitter disagreement is a bad example for non-Christians. If we Christians can't accept each other, how would we ever accept them?

I found some interesting statistics a few days ago, from a 2010 survey. (See: 
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/july-august/evolution-and-creationism-infographic.html)
The graphic linked to above doesn't give all the data, but lumps respondents into 3 main groups: those who believe (a) God guided evolution, (b) atheistic evolution (it happened without God), and (c) YEC (young-earth creationism - God created everything about 6000-10000 years ago). These categories are rather vague and lump a lot of people with different viewpoints together (did they not separate out old earth creationists? the remaining category was "other"), but the results are still interesting.

Overall, among all respondents:
God guided evolution: 38%
atheistic evolution: 16%
YEC: 40%

Among weekly church-goers:
God guided evolution: 31%
atheistic evolution: 2%
YEC: 60%
(I wonder about that 2% of weekly church-goers who don't think God had anything to do with it. Are they conflicted internally? Do they attend church only because someone else is making them? Do they attend a church which doesn't believe in a specific God, but is more of a proponent of spirituality in general?)

Among monthly/almost-every-week church-goers:
God guided evolution: 47%
atheistic evolution: 9%
YEC: 41%

Among rare church-goers:
God guided evolution: 39%
atheistic evolution: 31%
YEC: 24%

Here's another survey, from 2012, with similar, but slightly different, results:
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/01/survey-nearly-half-of-americans-subscribe-to-creationist-view-of-human-origins/

I am most familiar with those in the weekly church-goer group, where 60% believe in a young earth. I am a little surprised that number is so high, since among my friends and acquaintances, before I started homeschooling, I only had met 1 (yes, 1 single person) who seemed to be a strong proponent of YEC. Perhaps it's just because it wasn't a big deal amongst us. It wasn't a controversy - just one of those matters in the same category of how many angels fit on the head of a pin. I remember one Sunday School class, when I was in college, I believe, where we briefly mentioned evolution, and the consensus was that God could have created us any way He wanted to!

Since starting to homeschool, the number of YEC believers I have met (online or in person), has skyrocketed. It would be very interesting to see these survey results separated into homeschooler and non-homeschooler categories. I think YEC is a much bigger group among homeschoolers. Maybe 90% or so, but that's just a guess.

As an interesting side-note, I am a member of the yahoo group for the BFSU (Building Foundations for Scientific Understanding) curriculum, and there has recently been a big online discussion about young earth vs evolution. It was quite refreshing to read a discussion like this that wasn't filled with name-calling and accusations, with people willing to hear arguments for all sides. It was also refreshing to hear of many other Christian homeschoolers who are not YEC. We may not be vocal, but there really are some of us out here!

Science: teeth and tomatoes

Last Sunday, my oldest daughter's top front tooth finally came out. It has been wiggly for at least 5 months. I had tried to pull it out a few times, but to no avail. But Sunday morning after church, as we were searching for my younger daughter's jacket in various rooms in the children's building, Rebekah suddenly exclaimed loudly. When I turned to her, she was holding out her tooth in the palm of her hand. After a moment of shock, staring at her tooth, she ran to go show it to all the teachers still in the building. Such excitement! And yes, we did find my other daughter's jacket too.

The reason I mention this in relation to science is that we just so happened to have scheduled a study of teeth for the following week for science! Really! Perfect timing. 5 months, and then the day before we start to study teeth, it falls out. She was very attentive during her science lessons, I have to say.

On another, seemingly unrelated note, I was recently drying off my son in the bathroom after his bath, when he suddenly peered into the draining bathtub and pointed, exclaiming, "Tomato!" I frowned, and then leaned over to look, since we do have some plastic tomato slices that came with our kitchen play set. I didn't remember him bringing one into bath time to play, but I never know what he might sneak in without my notice. I was hoping it wasn't a real tomato.

I saw nothing, however, but after a moment, Ryan again exclaimed, "Tomato!" and pointed right at the drain. I looked again, more closely, and then I finally figured out what he was saying. Not "tomato," but "tornado." He saw a little waterspout that had formed as the bath water drained out.

I was quite impressed. A few weeks earlier, we had studied tornadoes, and did the experiment with the 2 2-liter coke bottles, where you attach them together, and have one drain into the other, swirling the water around to start a little "tornado" motion. I couldn't get it to work too well, since our connection was leaky, but we got it to work a little, and then we all watched a more professional demonstration on YouTube. Ryan was attentive most of the time, but I didn't think he really understood that much - after all, he's only 3. I really just talked to the girls as I explained things, letting Ryan hover in the background. He didn't even have a very good view. But he apparently paid more attention than I had thought. He remembered it a week or so later, plus applied it to a totally different activity - draining the bathtub.

I guess I should include him more often in our science lessons!

BFSU science curriculum

I've heard mentions of the Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding (BFSU) books by Dr. Bernard Nebel for quite some time, but hadn't looked into it too much until the past few weeks. Many people rave about it, saying how it is more thorough, more complete, more useful for building a truly integrated understanding of science than any other elementary or middle school age science curriculum they've seen. I hadn't looked at it too much because it is not really a planned-out curriculum. The books are for the parent or teacher, not the child. There are no day-by-day lesson plans, or scripts, or lists of "read these 3 pages in this book, do this experiment, and color this picture, etc." There are no pictures or worksheet pages in the books, no cute images to intrigue your young children. Basically, I thought it would be more work than I wanted to implement it, so I ignored it.

However, I recently found that you can buy an e-copy of one of the books in pdf format for only $5, downloading it straight to your computer (or Kindle). That's a full 3 years worth of science curriculum for $5, since each book covers 3 grade levels: book 1 is for K-2nd, book 2 is for 3rd-5th, and book 3 is for 6th-8th grades.

I bought book 1. I read the introductory material over our Thanksgiving vacation. And I really like it.

Those other reviewers were right - I think it really will build a comprehensive understanding of science, of all sorts, that is far deeper, more integrated, and more complete than anything else I've seen. The trick is that the author has organized the major facets of 4 primary scientific threads (chemistry, biology, physics, and earth/space sciences) and determined how they are interrelated, how they interact, and what you need to know in one field to understand the other fields. He's composed concise lessons for all these scientific fields and put them all in the "correct" order to develop an incredible scientific understanding if one studies the lessons in the correct order. And the lessons are designed for the appropriate ages, to not be too complex for 5-year-olds at the start, but increasing in complexity and depth as they weave their way through the scientific threads all the way through all 3 books. (I have to admit that I've only looked at the 1st book, for K-2nd grades, and so cannot promise that all the lessons are exactly "on-grade," but looking at the scope and sequence, they seem to be.)

The sequence of the lessons is not totally rigid, I should add. There are "pre-requisites" for some of the lessons, and you should do the lessons in each of the 4 threads in order, but you can choose which thread to do next. You can do a few lessons in one thread, then switch to a few lessons in another thread, go back to the first thread, etc., as long as you make sure you do the "pre-requisites" before certain lessons.

The lessons do involve a lot of hands-on work, and a lot of "experiential" learning which you can accomplish as you go about your daily life (grocery shopping, for example). Suggestions for a variety of things to do are described for each lesson. And any experiments require minimal supplies, most of which you really will have around your house.

I think since science is the one subject I really want to focus on myself (as opposed to finding independent or pre-planned or video-led curriculum for the others), I can have the time to implement BFSU. Science is one of my main passions, so I really want our science curriculum to be well-thought-out, complete, and academically advanced. I do love planning, too, and perhaps it is good to focus my "need to plan" on science, happily spending my time and effort on developing the best plan for us.

I know I had planned on using NOEO for a large portion of our science from K-8th grades, but I think the books and materials from NOEO can be used within the BFSU framework, just allowing BFSU to re-order when we do different topics. (I actually think now that BFSU will add a whole new level of comprehension and integration to NOEO's material - NOEO is good, but perhaps not integrated as well over the course of multiple years, and not as conducive toward building a real scientific, thinking, critical mind.) Even Sonlight's science book lists will be a useful resource. I forgot to mention that the BFSU books also include book lists for each lesson. Correlating all these lists should lead me to find a good selection! Also, there are many video sources that can be integrated into our master plan. Magic School Bus videos have been mentioned as a good fit, and perhaps the Sid the Science Kid videos for the younger ages. Also, Discovery Education videos (which you can get through the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op) should be an excellent supplement to BFSU.

The more I think about it, the more excited I get to implement BFSU. I can see lessons where an engineering topic would fit in very nicely, such as discussions about robotics, electronics, sensors, etc. Going with BFSU instead of a pre-planned curriculum would let me integrate all the other cool science stuff that I find and want to add on without (necessarily) overwhelming my kids (like Timberdoodle engineering kits, Intellego unit studies, robotics).

The BFSU lessons do have specific grade-level suggestions, but everything I've read indicates that you can easily use the lessons with ages outside those levels. I worried at first that I wouldn't be able to teach all 3 kids at the same time with BFSU, but I think I can. They are only 3.5 years apart, after all. I think if I wait until my oldest is in 2nd grade, and the youngest is 4, we can start with book 1. We'll just explain things simply for my youngest, and add in more material for my oldest. The sequence of lessons is the key, and I worried that my youngest might not understand the beginning lessons well enough to build on later, but if I wait long enough to start, I think he will. Previous lessons are revisited in later lessons, in a form of spiral learning, as more and more layers of scientific understanding are added. I believe the books are quite good at explaining how the required previous lessons fit in with a new lesson.

I'll be looking into how late I can start my oldest on the books and still have her finish by the end of 8th grade, to be ready for high school science. Then I'd have a few more years with the younger two before high school to add on or re-do any topics that needed more work. There are 108 "lessons" overall for K-8th grade, so I should have a bit of wiggle room, depending on how long I spend per lesson. The 4th thread, covering earth and space sciences, has the least number of lessons, so I'm thinking I'll end up adding quite a bit more there.

One last note - the thing that really sold me on BFSU was the lesson in book 1 on gravity and weightlessness in space (lesson D-7). It seems like every other elementary-age (and even older) science book I've read about astronauts explains the weightlessness of space as due to the "absence" of gravity. That has always irked me to no end. Earth's gravitational field does NOT just disappear in space, even as far away as the moon! BFSU explains that the weightlessness is due to the combination of the astronauts freefalling toward Earth (due to gravity) while moving at a high enough speed to maintain orbit (due to inertia and their initial speed at launch). The two force vectors combined result in the astronaut "falling around the Earth." Finally someone got it right! 

Smushed Egg

We're studying volcanoes this week and next. I've added an extra week of volcanoes to our schedule, since we have a Magic School Bus volcano kit to add to the Intro to Science curriculum. Also, we had the fire station field trip this week and we have an aquarium field trip next week, so we're loosing 1.5 days of school over these 2 weeks.

Today we did an experiment with a soft boiled egg to demonstrate that volcanoes tend to form in the cracks between tectonic plates. Basically, you soft boil an egg, let it cool, tap it against a table to form cracks (tectonic plates), mark the cracks with a sharpie to make them stand out, and then - squish the egg. My daughter chickened out and so I ended up being the one to do the squishing. It was a bit messy, but sure enough - the "core" of the egg came out right along a "fault line" (though you might not be able to see the sharpie line in the picture below). Messy fun!

Science and Sink Clogs

We made a mud pie yesterday for science. We're studying fossils this week, so the experiment was to make a mud pie with some seashells, rocks, sticks, etc, mixed in with mud. Then we let it dry for a day (no problem with that, here in drought-stricken Texas), and today we broke it apart and looked at the impressions we made. The seashells made the prettiest "fossils," with their finely detailed lines etched in the mud. The instructions said that soil with heavy clay content worked the best. No problem with that either. Our soil is probably about 90% clay!

All 3 kids loved this experiment, though my little boy refused to stick his hands in the yucky mud as we mixed it up yesterday. My middle child poked around in it a bit, but my oldest, princess-y girl dug right in and got mud almost up to her elbows!

The problem came during clean-up time. I was washing off the middle child in the kitchen, so I sent my oldest to her bathroom. She came back in a few minutes to tell me the sink wasn't draining. Must have been that clay soil. I poured almost a whole bottle of Liquid Plumber in the sink, and let it sit for about 6 hours - still completely plugged. It looked disgusting too, with half-dissolved mud, gel-like liquid, and soapy water all mixed together. My husband eventually got the toilet plunger out (though I know the Liquid Plumber bottle says not to do that), and got it flowing again after just a few minutes. That sink has problems anyway, and is connected somehow to the air conditioner as a drain, so I think some sort of vacuum had built up and it wasn't really the Liquid Plumber's fault. But at least it is fixed now, and running smoothly!

My oldest and youngest worked well together uncovering the "fossils" too. The middle child stayed inside with me, as it was way too hot and humid outside, even at 11am. My oldest carefully picked apart the mud pie and found all the fossil impressions (and showed us through the sliding glass door), and then gave the leftover pieces of dried mud to my youngest, who proceeded to throw them all over the porch to watch them crumble to pieces. Great fun!

Thunderstorm

We have been in a drought for the longest time. We have had so little rain that there are cracks in the ground big enough to swallow a small dog. We normally have our field cut for hay, and it's grown so little this summer that there's probably not even enough for one bale. People have been praying for rain for months. The governor even held a prayer meeting at the stadium downtown.

Our science topic for this week is electricity, and the nature walk part of it was to witness a thunderstorm and observe the lightning. Now, normally in the Houston summer, we have thunderstorms all the time. The afternoon heat and humidity almost inevitably grows some impressive thunderheads, and we get 10-minute deluges all the time. But not this year.

Until today.

Today, we were supposed to do our nature walk. I already had a youtube link ready for us to view. But this morning, the sky grew darker and darker. We had to turn on the lights in our school room. We began to hear thunder in the distance. It got louder and louder. Then, suddenly, it hit. The rain came down so heavy we could hardly see out the windows. The wind blew so hard the rain was blowing sideways - or at least at an 80 degree angle. It really seemed like tropical storm force winds and rain to me (and yes, I have experienced that before too a few times). The neighbor's trampoline was blown halfway across their yard and flipped upside down.

And the lightning!  Everywhere! Again and again and again! We turned off the computers and unplugged everything and then stared out the windows. Electricity exemplified!

It lasted about 30 minutes at the worst, I think. Our power only blinked off once, and we had one lightning strike simultaneously with the thunder boom. Then the storm continued past, the winds dropped, and the rain lessened. It still rained for another hour or two, to a lesser extent - a wonderful blessing to our ground and vegetation and wildlife.

And we had a very impressive first-hand science lesson. Rebekah's drawing of the storm was beautiful and heartfelt.

What a wonderful, educational day!

Independent, traditional, eclectic, and more!

I finally managed today to return my copy of Cathy Duffy's 100 Top Picks book to the friend I borrowed it from. I think the most useful part to me was the questionnaire portion which helps you determine which teaching style you prefer. I wrote earlier how I ended up with scores very close together for almost all of the styles. Well, after getting a bit more hands-on experience with homeschooling, trying out a few things, and checking out more curriculum, I thought I'd redo the questionnaire and see if my thoughts were any clearer or different.

My scores this time were definitely more widespread. I went from a low of 41.2% (unschooling) to a high of 87.5% (independent), instead of everything being clustered around the 40-50th percentile. Kinda funny - you can see how after attempting to teach hands-on for a few months, I have definitely strengthened my desire to get the kids to work independently! My previous ranking for independent study was still the 2nd highest, but was only 54.2%.

Traditional and umbrella approaches turned out tied for 2nd place at 72.7%. This is quite in keeping with my current decision to use the traditional textbook approach of Bob Jones (added in with the independence aspect of using the distance learning videos). Traditional and umbrella approaches were tied for 3rd place the first time I took the questionnaire.

My original 1st place choice, the classical approach, went down to 3rd place at 69%, followed by eclectic (58.3%), Charlotte Mason (54.8%), unit studies (50%), and finally unschooling (41.2%). These are pretty much in the same order as my original rankings - just more widely spaced percentage-wise.

I do still like the classical and Charlotte-Mason approaches, to some extent, but they are very parent-intensive. I am still using a CM approach for science and mostly history. As I've read others say, science is mostly exposure in elementary school, and the more hands-on, the better. We are having fun doing science right now, and I don't forsee changing to a more traditional method until jr. high or high school. I do like teaching all the kids together, and directly, for a least a few things. As I mentioned last time, I have found many correlations between our Intro to Science course and the BJU science videos, and have been letting the kids watch a video or two a week that goes along with our topic. For 1st grade, I see nothing in BJU science that contradicts my old earth belief.

(I'll add a warning though - the reading portion of BJU grade 1 English lesson #150 does contain a very anti-old earth message, along with what I consider to be false information, so we will be skipping that one.)

I'll continue next time with history.

Too Hot for Science

We did a nature walk for science yesterday - from inside the house. We stood at the back sliding glass door and looked outside instead of actually going outside. Hey, it was 104 F officially in Houston!  It was probably only 101 or so at our house, but I had no desire to spend even a few minutes yesterday afternoon wandering around the backyard looking for natural inclined planes.

We found a few, even from through the window: the deck railing, the slide, and the ditch behind the house (we don't have hills here, so a ditch is the best we could do for a slope).

In any case, I think my daughter understands the concept of inclined planes after this week. We raced toy cars down a sloping piece of cardboard, we raced water drops down a wax-paper-covered cookie sheet, and we watched a BJU science video on friction. We skipped the painting project this week. Our teacher guide suggested rolling paint-dipped marbles down a piece of cardboard. I made an executive decision that this would be too messy, as I could easily imagine paint-covered marbles ending up all over the floor.

I've looked over the BJU Science 1 videos and found quite a few that should fit in nicely with our Intro to Science class. I'll just change the order around a bit, showing 1 or 2 a week usually. We'll probably skip the worksheets and their experiments - just watching the teacher do them, since we have plenty to do on our own anyway. The BJU class seems to also be a mostly introductory class, discussing a wide variety of topics, none of which contradict my own old earth beliefs. So it is a nice add-on to our original science plans.

Last Shuttle Flight

Tomorrow morning, at 5:56am Eastern time, the shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to land in Florida. The last shuttle. It does make me sad, since the space shuttle has been a part of my life for quite a while. So I thought I'd write a blog post about it.

When I was a sophomore in high school, living overseas in Germany, I took physics. I loved that class, and I loved my teacher, Mrs. Smothers. She made things very interesting, and I loved all the experiments we got to do. I still have quite clear memories of some of them - the water wave tank, the portable planetarium that took up the entire classroom, basic mechanics experiments in the hallways. That's probably why I ended up majoring in physics in college. I was also very proud of my teacher since she signed up for the very first Teacher in Space program and was selected as one of 2 teachers to represent American teachers in Europe. At this level of the selection process, 2 teachers from each state, plus 2 from various overseas locations (teaching in American schools), were chosen to come for interviews and testing and all. She had little hope that she would get any further, due to physical limitations, but she was so excited to have gotten that far. She wrote in my little signature book at the end of the school year that she hoped to wave to me from space soon! Due to her participation in this program, I became interested in the space program as well.

Mrs. Smothers didn't get any farther in the selection process, for which I was grateful when, the following year, the Challenger Disaster occurred, with the first teacher in space on board. We lived in Oklahoma that year, my junior year, having moved back to the States the previous summer. I was home from school sick that day, when my dad called and told us we better turn on the tv. We watched the news, stunned.

I still kept my interest in space strong. The following summer we moved to Issaquah, Washington, as my dad retired from the Air Force, and I began my senior year of high school. I remember making a model of a space station out of Legos for my current affairs class. I used different colored Legos for different parts of the station - life support, propulsion, etc. All this was because NASA was talking about building a permanent space station. I also studied astronomy that year as an independent study, since I had already taken physics.

When I started college, I decided to major in physics and astronomy, as well as music - my other love. It took me 5 years, but I still never could choose between the sciences and music. Then we got a new music minister at our church up there in Renton, Washington, who just happened to have a brother who had just been selected as an astronaut. I made sure to meet him.  ;-)

I spent a few years wandering between potential careers, trying out astronomy in grad school as a precursor to becoming an astronaut myself, burning out and coming back to music and more artistic pursuits, then jumping into librarianship so I could read all those books which were my other passion. I realized I could combine some of these interests, and took a 6-week unpaid science library internship in Houston, Texas, at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, next door to Johnson Space Center. My music minister's astronaut brother found me a jeep to borrow for those 6 weeks. A jeep which belonged to an astronaut who just happened to be training in Russia for the year. It was a stick shift, and I didn't know how to drive a stick shift, but I learned the basics and took really, really good care of that jeep!

I also made an interesting discovery while filing newspaper clippings at the library. There was a field called space robotics. I had never heard of such a thing before, but I was fascinated, and realized that maybe I still could become an astronaut if I got a PhD in space robotics.

At the end of my internship, my astronaut friend was scheduled to launch on the shuttle, STS-69, and my family was invited. We went, and got to sit in the VIP viewing area and, after a few delays, watched my friend launch into space aboard the shuttle.

I have no words to describe that experience.

Let me just say that my desire to become an astronaut increased significantly.

When I returned home from my internship, I researched space robotics graduate programs and started applying. I got accepted to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA - the premier school for robotics. I learned computer programming really quickly, and began to program robots to explore space. I found the professors who had connections to NASA and worked for them. I volunteered to advise a high school robotics team, funded by NASA Headquarters. I picked a thesis topic relevant to space exploration, and got to travel to the high Canadian arctic and to Antarctica. I learned how to fly planes and got my private pilot's license. I went skydiving. I got to go down to Florida for another launch, driving all the way from Pennsylvania with my former music minister's family (who had taken a new job in PA). I went down to Houston for another internship, this time at Johnson Space Center itself. My astronaut friend took me to meet Duane Ross, the guy who selects all the new astronauts. I began applying to be an astronaut, even though I didn't have my PhD and wasn't completely qualified yet.

And I tried to learn how to scuba dive. Scuba diving is required for astronaut candidates. I didn't know how to swim, but I figured I better learn if I wanted to become an astronaut.

It didn't work. I freak out underwater, I discovered, and this greatly dimmed my enthusiasm. I was also becoming more interested in space robotics as a career in itself, and not just a stepping stone to being an astronaut. I was enjoying working as a roboticist at NASA. I was enjoying the opportunity to do robotics research in beautifully extreme and remote locations. Space is cool, but Earth is a pretty fascinating place to explore too.

I did take swimming lessons the next fall, but my aspirations had subtly altered. I graduated with my PhD and went to work at Johnson Space Center, getting to know multiple astronauts and getting to do lots of cool space robotics. I stopped applying to be an astronaut, because I was pretty happy with things the way they were right then. I met a guy at my church who also worked at NASA, and we got engaged.

I usually cut my hair myself, with just a plain long hair style, but I planned to get a professional cut a few months before my wedding. The day this was scheduled also happened to be the day a shuttle was supposed to land. In many parts of the country, most people don't even know when the shuttle is up or down, but in Houston, it's always on the local news. Even those of us who work at NASA don't always pay too much attention to when launches or landings happen - at least back then - but we usually know approximately when they are. So that Saturday morning, when I got up to get ready for my hair cut, I realized the shuttle should be landing any minute now and turned on NASA TV to watch.

There were no pictures of the shuttle. I frowned, looked at the clock, and turned up the volume. There should have been pictures of the shuttle high in the atmosphere, gliding down through the clouds. I checked the landing time on the computer and then looked at my clock again. There should have been pictures of the shuttle on the ground. There weren't. Columbia didn't make it back.

This time, the emotions were much, much stronger than with Challenger. This time, I worked at NASA. This time, I had actually met and talked to one of the astronauts on board that shuttle. This time, I couldn't stop crying.

My fiance and I talked over the phone for quite a while as the events unfolded. He convinced me to go ahead and get my hair cut, and we made it through the day. My fiance was getting new carpet put in his house, and I went over there and we stood watching the news on tv as the carpet layers worked around us. We went back to work the next week, and everyone was somber. Hundreds of volunteers drove the few hours north to help locate, identify and sort through the debris of Columbia over the next few weeks. Thousands stood in the mall area on-site when the president came to speak at our memorial service. Thousands stood silent during the ceremony.

NASA survived, and we survived, and the shuttle program survived. And tomorrow is the last landing, may it be a safe one. My life is so intertwined with so many memories and images of the space shuttle that it is hard to imagine not having any more launches and landings. The course of my life, and the unfolding of my own personal events, has been changed and affected by the space shuttle. I have made sure to have my young children watch all the launches and landings that I could over the last few years. I don't know if they'll remember much, being so young, but all 3 of them were mesmerized by the most recent - the last - shuttle launch. They count down from 10 with the announcer, they raise their hands and shout "Blast off!".  My middle child, just 3 years old, has said several times that she wants to go into space and be an astronaut. I hope they remember some of this, over the next few years without any shuttle launches. I hope they are still inspired to explore space.

But I imagine this is how others felt when the Apollo program ended so many years ago. Many years passed, after the last mission to the Moon, before the space shuttle program began in earnest. In fact, the Apollo program ended when I was just about the same age as my own children are now. I was born just 8 days after the first human stepped foot on the Moon.

Neil Armstrong, July 20th, 1969. Exactly 42 years ago today.

I don't remember seeing any of the Apollo launches, but I still developed a strong interest in space. Who knows what my children will witness over the next twenty or thirty years? Hopefully plenty to inspire, plenty to encourage, plenty to remember. Hopefully not the last, but the first of many flights to come.

Mixing Colors

Today, our science and art classes went together quite well. We are studying colors this week in science, and our art lesson today is also about colors. Well, I guess art is almost always about colors, in some form or fashion, but this week's lesson is about mixing colors, blending white with bright colors to make paler ones. And our science experiment we did today was mixing primary-colored water to make new colors (e.g. red + yellow = orange).

The science experiment was made much easier, and more fun, by using the jumbo test tubes I just won in a Facebook contest by Discover This (website: http://www.discoverthis.com/). They had posted a picture on facebook of some mystery object magnified 43x. I guessed it was the bottom of a mouse pad, which turned out to be correct! So they sent me these test tubes, as well as a Magic School Bus volcano kit, which I plan to use in conjunction with week 16 of our Intro to Science course, which is on volcanos. Pretty neat how it all fits together!

So, for the color mixing experiment, the experiment called for using 3 squeezable bottles (like empty dishwashing soap containers) full of water dyed with food coloring, in the 3 primary colors of red, blue, and yellow. They the kids could squeeze the colored water into clear bowls to mix colors in various combinations. I didn't have 3 squeezable bottles on hand, so what we did instead was take 3 clear plastic bowls and filled them with the 3 primary colors (food-color-dyed water). Then I gave each child a medicine dropper and one of the jumbo test tubes, and they were "scientists" mixing "solutions" of color.The girls loved it, and did quite well. My 2-year-old Ryan loved it, but could not for the life of him figure out how to fill up the medicine dropper. So I filled the dropper for him, and he squirted it into his test tube. Mostly. His aim is not so good, so we used quite a few washrags to clean up all the spilled/squirted water everywhere.

Going along with the color theme, the nature walk for this week is to try and find a rainbow outside. It actually rained yesterday (we've been in drought conditions for months, so this was quite a welcome surprise), so we ran outside to look for rainbows, but unfortunately didn't find one. We might even get more rain this week, so maybe we'll find a rainbow by Friday. If not - I've got a prism handy, and we'll make our own.

Crystal Pictures

Just thought I'd post a picture of the crystals we're growing in our pie pan. They really grew a lot overnight!

Crystals and Paint Are Fun!

I just finished cleaning up the girls' paint palettes after our art class and sent them to the playroom, so I thought I'd write a blog entry. We do art once a week, using a book called Discover Art by Laura H. Chapman. I found the books on amazon.com, after reading some good reviews about the series. I actually bought it (and all the books in the series) for about a penny each, though shipping was $3.99.

There are 6 books, for grades 1 through 6, I assume, though this level 1 book we're doing right now is good for both my almost-6-year-old and my 3.5-year-old. I've let my 2.5-year-old boy participate a few times, since he likes coloring and painting, but he doesn't really understand the point of the lesson most of time. For that matter, my 3.5-year-old girl may not get it very well either, but at least she doesn't eat the crayons and smear paint and glue on herself like my son does! I waited until his naptime today to have art class. It's just much cleaner that way. The lessons are very basic - lines, curves, colors, painting, paper collages, but there are some nice images in the book to demonstrate things. Today's lesson had some paintings by Van Gogh.

These books are out of print, and there is also another series by Laura Chapman called Adventures in Art, which is also out of print, I believe. I think that series is very similar to mine, maybe even just repackaged. The books I got are old library books, but I think they were frequently used in elementary schools years ago. Anyway, they are perfect for our art lessons, with short lessons using a wide variety of activities and simple materials. I made up a list of materials needed for the level 1 book, and it includes crayons, white & colored paper, construction paper, scissors, glue, paints & paintbrushes, clay or playdough, colored pencils, markers, textured objects for tracing and pasting, cardboard tubes, objects to use as stamps, paper plates, stapler, string, tape, paper cups, and fabric pieces. I haven't gone through books 2-5 in as much detail, but they seem to follow a similar pattern.

The other hands-on activity we did today was for science class. We are making crystals in a pie pan. This activity was listed in the Intro to Science course we're doing, but is detailed in the More Mudpies to Magnets book. It is fairly simple, though we had to have some "blueing agent" which I had to order. You put some sponge pieces, water, blueing agent, salt, and ammonia in a pie pan, and then let it sit for several days to let crystals grow. We started it about 4-5 hours ago, and it is already showing some nice white crystal structures around the perimeter of the pie pan, just above the liquid level. The ammonia smelled terrible, but overall, it is a good and easy experiment.

The kids all enjoy the science and art work that we do. I never have to prod or push or scold them into doing those classes, or to pay attention while I'm talking. I enjoy teaching these subjects too. Science - because it is fascinating and one of my favorite topics, and art - because it can be beautiful, colorful, and I love making art myself.

Now, math and English, on the other hand, can be a pain for both my daughter and myself. I am realizing that I could never be an elementary school teacher! I admire those who do teach these ages, year after year! I am just not patient enough for all the necessary repetition that these subjects require at these young ages. Having to repeat myself has always been one of my biggest pet peeves, and teaching addition and subtraction, letter sounds, and reading in general, to either a kindergartner or a first grader (and probably higher) just requires the teacher to repeat themselves a lot. That's how this age learns. It's not that she doesn't get it - just that learning this stuff and getting it down pat requires lots of repetition.

I should know that, since as a pianist, I have to repeatedly practice the same thing over and over again. I don't mind that, but then, I'm the one doing the repeating for myself. Having to drill things with my daughter is driving me crazy. I get bored, I get frustrated, and I just want to be done with it and move on to something more interesting. That's why I dislike it, I know, and I'm afraid my dislike of it is being transferred to my daughter.

I love the material I've picked out, both for math and for language arts, and think it could be a really great way of teaching. But I'm not liking having to be the one doing the teaching. Impatience on my part, I know. But I'm seriously thinking of switching to a distance learning video product, at least for math and English. That's what I had originally planned to do, upon taking my daughter out of public school, because I knew teaching wasn't my favorite thing to do. But then I got distracted by all the curriculum available, and found so many (cheaper) curriculum products that sounded great and really are great and can make it easy to teach and cover everything needed. But in order to keep my sanity, and to keep my daughter loving to learn, I'm seriously thinking about the Bob Jones distance learning products, at least for elementary school. I'll write more about them later, but I just thought I should confess my thought trends at the moment! Science and art we are all loving, and I will continue teaching those subjects no matter what, but we've got to change something with how we're doing math and English.

Addition and digraphs may drive me crazy, but crystals and paint are fun!

Intro to Science

We are currently on week 3 of our new science course: Intro to Science, from ElementalScience. All 3 kids have been enjoying it so far, though I don't think my 2-year-old really understands much other than he gets to see some neat things and roam around outside with Mommy once a week.  My 3-year-old may understand a bit more, but it's hard to tell how much "science" she's getting out of it. However, my 5-year-old (almost 6) has been repeating some of what she's learned to Daddy in the evenings, and sometimes bringing up related topics with me a week or so later. Science is definitely one subject she never complains about doing!

We did solids/liquids the first week, with an experiment to melt crayon pieces into crayon "cakes" in a muffin tin. We'd done that before about a year or so ago, but they all loved seeing it again. We also searched for and found some pine trees oozing rosin. Last week was solutions & dilutions, and we made Koolaid of varying strengths (tasted nasty to me), painted with diluted paint, and made mud with varying ratios of water to dirt (that was the outside part). This week is density, and so far we've experimented with oil floating on water, and testing an assortment of objects to see if they will float on oil, water, or molasses, or not at all. The nature walk this week will be finding more objects to test how well they float.  These first 6 weeks are one unit all about chemistry, but then we'll go into 5 more units, covering physics, geology, meteorology, botany, and zoology.

Looking ahead to week #23, which is on tornadoes, I'm hoping our nature walk doesn't get too wild that week....

We started out using the 2-day-a-week schedule, but this week, I'm trying out the 5-day-a-week schedule. It makes each session shorter and seems to be working better for us. Probably because my kids still have very short attention spans. It spreads out the experiments too, so we're not get too messy too many times in one day. So I think we will stick with that, and probably spread out our history (study of the states) a bit more too, and do less each day, but more days a week. As I gain a little more experience homeschooling, I'm beginning to modify things a bit more, and not be so particular about having a strict schedule. That seems to be a necessity with 2 preschoolers roaming around.

Next week we're taking a break from school. My husband will be on a business trip out of the country, and I'm sending the girls to Vacation Bible School. I figured that might help me cope a bit better during my week of "single" parenting. We'll see how it goes!

Long-Term Science Plan

One of the subjects I am most interested in - and most particular about teaching - is science. I want to make sure my children enjoy science, learn a lot about it, understand it, and perhaps even pursue it in college. So, what to pick as a homeschool curriculum that will meet those goals? An additional constraint is that I would really like to teach all 3 of my children together in this subject for as long as I can, mostly due to time constraints. Science, like history, is more amenable to multi-grade teaching than most other subjects.

As I wrote earlier, I have not been impressed by most of the Christian homeschool science curricula on the market, due to the negativity and accusatory attitude they seem to take toward old-earth viewpoints and evolutionary thought. Rather than repeat everything I wrote about in detail earlier, if you're interested, just see my 3 posts starting with Part 1.

NOEO
So, what curriculum am I planning on using? I am very interested in the NOEO science courses. These combine the Classical and Charlotte Mason approaches to education, using lots of interesting books and hands-on experiments. They offer 3 levels of science: level 1 is for grades 1-3, level 2 is for grades 4-6, and level 3 is for grades 7-9, I believe. Those are approximate guidelines, and I don't think it would be much of a stretch to add a grade level before or after the main range. Within each level, they have 3 main topics: chemistry, physics, and biology, though level 3 only has chemistry right now. Other topics, such as geology, weather, or astronomy, are added in appropriate places.

One thing I like about these courses is the literature basis - lots of interesting-looking books for each course, dealing with subsets of the main topic. Another thing I like is that they come with experiment kits, which are scheduled in with the readings. Oh, and yes - everything is scheduled, with a 4-day week, which could be combined into a 2-day week. The publisher is a Christian company, but their courses just teach science, plain and simple. They provide secular, non-dogmatic books, and do not offer commentary, allowing the parent to address any issues they wish in the manner they wish. In fact, to me, NOEO seems similar to Sonlight, except for science instead of history/Bible/literature.

Now, I haven't bought and tried any of them yet, so I may change my mind, but right now, I'm thinking I'll use these for all of the elementary years. I am not going to start with them this coming year, since my 2 younger ones will be too young to get much out of it, and I'd rather wait to make use of all these experiments (which are a little pricey) when all 3 kids are old enough to observe them. I will start when my oldest is in 2nd grade, and the other 2 are in K and pre-K. They'll still be a little young, but we'll cycle through each science topic in future years too. We'll do the last of level 1 when my oldest is in 4th grade, but I don't think she'll be too old to get a lot out of the course. Then we'll proceed onward to levels 2 & 3.

Elemental Science
For this first year, I found another source I like called ElementalScience. The author is a Christian, according to the FAQ, but the courses are non-sectarian and focused only on science. They also offer science using a Classical approach, and using living books, with grammar stage, logic stage, and rhetoric stage courses. They don't have courses for all the stages yet, but they are planning to have 4 disciplines for each level: biology, earth science/astronomy, chemistry, and physics.

They also have a level for the "Early Years," and this level is what I'm going to use this coming year. Intro to Science is meant for preschool and kindergarten, but they have hints for using it with an older student so I think it will still be valuable for a 1st grader. I bought the eBook (only $15), and then bought the spine books: More Mudpies to Magnets and Usborne First Science Encyclopedia. Anne Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study is also required, but I downloaded it for free here. It sounds like we'll do some sort of nature walk each week, along with some readings and an experiment. Other book suggestions are given for individual weeks, which we may or may not use, depending on if they're in the library. Six topics are covered in this courses, with 6 weeks for each one: chemistry, physics, geology, meteorology, botany, and zoology. The eBook provides a schedule for either a 2-day week or a 5-day week. All in all, it sounds like it will be a good introduction, and will be interesting for all 3 kids (though my littlest may not do more than tag along). After we've used it for a while, I'll write another review.

Intellego

Finally, I found one other resource which I may use in the future. Despite not really liking unit studies, I think I may like the smaller-focus unit studies from Intellego. These are downloadable pdf files with discussion and links (constantly updated) to internet sources for much of the activities and readings. I wouldn't use it as a primary curriculum, and some of their science options sound too focused for me, but there are quite a few studies which I could see adding in either alongside NOEO or as a change of pace between courses. In fact, I may take one year between levels 1 and 2 of NOEO, and do 4 Intellego science studies in a row: Solar System; Soils, Rocks, Minerals & Fossils; Whales; and Natural Disasters. These are all multi-age studies, for 8-14 year olds, taking 1-3 months each. Other studies I like are a few of the K-2nd grade studies (Rocks, Minerals and Soils; and Astronomy) and 6th-8th grade studies (Astronomy, Plate Tectonics, and Oceanography when it becomes available). Their website has lots of samples you can try out. Just FYI, they are a secular company, and seem to cover evolution quite a bit in some of the studies.

Upper Grades
As for junior high and high school, I think I will be using regular textbooks, such as from Holt, Prentice Hall, Glencoe, or McGraw-Hill. Many of these have teacher resources and websites with lots of additional multi-media material as well. Many of the homeschool science providers don't offer science for the higher grades, and the ones that do, I don't like. Many of them, I have heard, are not even accepted as high-school level courses by more rigorous universities (some of that due to a low difficulty level and some of that due to misleading or simply erroneous "facts" being taught). We'll wait and see what's available when we get that far, but I may end up teaching science from the textbooks myself, getting science lab kits of some sort. With my science background, I don't think that will be a problem, except for the amount of time required. I will, again, try to combine kids and grade levels, but that might be a bit trickier at that level due to the math requirements. There are online and correspondence-type courses available at those levels, some of which provide college credit even, but they can be expensive. If I am capable of teaching it myself, I would find it hard to justify paying someone else to do it.

But those years are far away, so we will deal with that when we get closer!

Old Earth Creationism

Just a quick entry to say that I've stumbled across a few more websites of interest for the old earth viewpoint.  This blog - http://oldearthcreationism.blogspot.com - is exactly what I was looking for! The author has grade-level lists of curriculum for science that are "old-earth" friendly! I have just barely begun to look into her blog, but I think I will find a lot of useful information there.

Also, by following a few links, I found these websites as well:
http://www.answersincreation.org/index.htm
http://www.reasons.org/

I have not looked at them in any depth, but they seem very interesting, and were recommended by several other sites. Both appear to have content about integrating science with the Bible.

A few more links:
http://geochristian.wordpress.com/ - mostly geology, but also general science from a Christian viewpoint
http://asa3online.org/homeschool/ - not much content yet, but it sounds like they may have some soon (their parent site:  http://asa3.org/)

The Problem with Science and History, Part 3

One final point that concerns me in this debate is the attitude displayed in these Christian curriculums toward those who believe in an old Earth. Some Christians believe that science, and scientists, are anti-God and anti-Christian, and that the world in general places a higher priority and belief in science than in God.  That is true for some scientists, but not for many, and I don’t believe even for the majority.  I read a complaint that scientists (all of them?) believe that science takes precedence over religion, and that religion and God should take a secondary position in the world - even that God is irrelevant in the modern, science-based world.

I say that, when pursuing science, it is not that science takes precedence over God, but that faith in the consistency and logic of God’s creation is affirmed.  If a scientific theory appears to contradict the Bible, then certainly, hold off on a full-fledged commitment to that scientific theory, but don’t discount it entirely either.  Wait for more evidence, and study your interpretation of that part of the Bible.  Biblical interpretations are wrong more often than we like to admit. Remember Augustine’s admonition I quoted earlier!

I have never had problems combining my beliefs with scientific explanations.  I have always seen science as a description of the mechanism by which God works, while my religious beliefs explain why and for what reason God works. In all the years I have learned about science, physics, astronomy, etc., I have never encountered a theory or fact or explanation which flatly contradicted my beliefs. On the contrary, I have always found that learning something new in science has always opened my eyes to a new facet of God or shown me how even more powerful and grand and awesome our God is.

I’m side-tracking from the young-earth debate, but I’ve heard quite a few Christians say that the Big Bang theory is also very anti-God, and doesn’t really answer any questions anyway. The Big Bang theory says that the universe came from an extremely dense, extremely high-energy singularity. It does not explain what happened before the bang, or where the energy came from - but it’s not attempting to do so. Scientists know the limits of their theories. Scientists, contrary to some believers’ accusations, are not trying to explain God, or get rid of Him, or explain Him away, or prove that He does not exist.  They are not theologians. They are trying to explain what we see in our world and gain insight into how the world works.  Nothing in the Big Bang theory claims that God didn’t exist before the Big Bang, or that God didn’t initiate the Big Bang Himself.

I read in a Christian science textbook sample that cosmologists theorize about how the universe began, and if they don’t say that God created everything, then they must put their faith in an untestable or unworkable theory.  I find that statement extremely antagonistic and negative toward scientists.  A person can believe that God created everything and still be interested in figuring out how He did it! (God is outside of time, remember, and outside of our universe. The origin of the universe is not the origin of God.) A scientist isn’t putting his faith in a theory - he’s just postulating a theory in an attempt to learn something. You have to start somewhere! Just because God created the world doesn’t mean that He doesn’t want to let us see anything about how He did it. God gave us minds and made the universe comprehensible, logical, and consistent, just so we can study it and learn about it - and learn about God in the process.

The same textbook continues to say, “It is actually blasphemy to say that the intricate handiwork of God we see all around us is nothing more than fallout from a cosmic explosion.”  Perhaps this is true if you really say the “nothing more” part, but there is no blasphemy in saying that you think God used a cosmic explosion to create the universe. The textbook continues, “The theory diminishes the personal work of a Creator ‘who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span.’”  Why does pondering how God created the world diminish His work? Does it not exalt Him even more that His creation of man is able to ponder His work? That a Creator who works with such enormous power and energy still created us to have such intricate bodies and perfectly-detailed workings, and still speaks to us as a personal Father to His child?

The last bit in this textbook about the Big Bang theory talks about evolutionary scientists who are trying to improve upon the Big Bang theory (though evolution and cosmology are quite different scientific fields) and figure out why parts of it don’t make sense. That’s fine - a theory is a theory - scientists know theories aren’t perfect, and their job is to try and fine-tune them or change them when they prove to be inconsistent or incorrect. But then the textbook goes on to say that these theory tweaks “are desperate attempts by unregenerate men to explain the universe without acknowledging the Creator.” Seriously? There are plenty of Big Bang theorists and even evolutionists (men and women alike) who acknowledge God as the Creator!

Science is a means for understanding God's works even better. Nothing science can prove can discredit God, since science is just our physical "paraphrase," so to speak, of God's laws and activity. Science can solidify a portion of our knowledge of God into something concrete - something small enough, or straightforward enough, that our minds can grasp it. Science is never meant to explain the "whys" of the world, and no scientist I know has ever assumed that. Out of all the years I studied in college and graduate school, the only time I ever heard a professor say something that sounded anti-God was in a humanities & literature class, talking about morality and good and evil.

Evolution is another related, but definitely distinct issue from the young-earth/old-earth controversy. Even someone who believes in an old earth does not necessarily believe humans evolved from apes, and I am certainly less certain of evolution than I am of an old earth, but still, even evolution could have been used by God. (I believe the Catholics allow for the possibility of evolution more so than Protestants tend to.) I had expected to find Creationism throughout the Christian texts (which is a good thing), and a fair amount of anti-evolution discussions, bringing up all the issues and problems with dating techniques and the lack of a fossil record and other hard evidence, but I really hadn’t thought that the “young earth” concept would be so prevalent, or that so much antagonism toward other scientific theories (and scientists, and science in general) would be voiced.

Since it is, however, most of the science courses offered by Christian curriculum providers, and some of the ancient history courses, are not ones I want to use to teach my children. It’s a shame, really, since I would love to have a science course that credits and praises God for His creation and creativity throughout the universe. (I am fully able to fill in my own thoughts and comments in this area - maybe I’ll have to write my own course material!) I would love to have a history course that fits in Biblical history with secular history, showing God’s hand at work (and may still use such a course, once we get past the more ancient time period). As it is, I will make my children aware of the controversies and the different theories, but I will use secular texts as the core for ancient history and biology and geology and astronomy, and add my own thoughts and other supplemental readings about the wonder and majesty of God’s work.

[Side note:  Upon further research, Sonlight (www.sonlight.com) offers a wonderful history program that is one of the few Christian ones I am happy with, and the more I research it, the more I’m thinking I will use them for at least some years. They do use some secular material that discusses different viewpoints, including an old Earth, and including evolution - usually these sections are not scheduled in their daily plans, but I can always add it in myself, allowing me to teach my children the full story.]

The Problem with Science and History, Part 2

I strongly believe that there is nothing we can prove in science that will be contrary to a belief in God and the Bible.  If there are discrepancies, then either our interpretation of science is wrong, or our interpretation of the Bible is wrong.  God created the world and gave the universe consistent, logical laws.  Science is a detailed, logical, experimental study of the world.  The two cannot be inconsistent.

God created the world to show us more about Himself. Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” And Psalm 19:1-4 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”

Add to this the fact that God does not lie or deceive us (this should be obvious, but some Biblical references are Titus 1:2, Numbers 23:19, and Hebrews 6:18), and you should be able to draw the conclusion that God did not create the natural world in a manner that would teach us false or misleading information. If more and more scientific evidence is pointing toward an ancient universe, then we should learn from this, and not say that the evidence is misleading us or has been put there as a test to make it seem like the world is ancient even when it is not (which I have heard some young-earth theorists suggest).

What I have been reading in more and more curriculums is a strong belief that our interpretation of the Bible cannot ever be wrong, and this disturbs me greatly.  It brings up the whole sun-orbits-the-earth debate which got Galileo in trouble with the Catholic church and caused all sorts of theological crises in many people’s minds.

Galileo quoted Augustine:  “If anyone shall set the authority of Holy Writ against clear and manifest reason, he who does this knows not what he has undertaken; for he opposes to the truth not the meaning of the Bible, which is beyond his comprehension, but rather his own interpretation; not what is in the Bible, but what he has found in himself and imagines to be there.”

I read in one young-earth discussion, talking about ideas that try to harmonize the Bible with an old-earth or evolutionary theory:  “They are compromises that have destroyed the credibility of the Bible in the eyes of nonbelievers, so that the Bible’s authority even in moral matters is called into question.  Christians who struggle in their faith in the basic doctrines of the Bible think that if the Bible’s account of Creation, the Fall and Curse, and the Flood are merely myths or symbolic stories, then the doctrines of salvation, separation, and future judgment are probably myths or symbolic stories as well.”

This has not been my experience. My experience has instead been that disagreement about the scientific utility of Genesis has a minor effect on wavering believers, but the insistence on a young earth and absolutely no type of evolution has a major effect on non-believers and on scientifically-minded believers as well.  I have definitely heard non-believers in my scientific career circles dismiss Christianity solely because of the insistence of some believers in the young-earth theory.  The young-earth theory sounds so anti-science and so unbelievable to those who have studied geology or astronomy or several other sciences, that it is an immediate turn-off to many non-believers.  They say that if Christians can believe that, then there’s no way that anything else they believe can be right!

I had a classmate who was raised in a Christian home, who claims he was once a Christian, who turned into an atheist when he realized that evolution could be true. He did not believe that the Christian worldview could be reconciled with evolution, due to so many Christians who say they are irreconcilable.  He did not understand that even evolution, even the Big Bang, requires a Creator. So he kept his faith in his intellect and his logic, and disdained his faith in God.  If he had only been shown that both could be true, despite any apparent surface inconsistencies, he might not have fallen away from God!

As I mentioned earlier, whether the earth is young or old is a disputable matter. It may be a critical point to some people, and it may be a stumbling block, but it really should not affect our salvation. A person does not need to believe one way or the other in this matter to believe and trust in Jesus. The fact that Jesus is the sole way to God is not disputable. The age of the Earth is.

See Part 3.