staff review
- Reviewed on Thursday, November 20, 2008
- Grades Used: Micro Chem Kit - High School
- Dates used: September - October 2008
Dr. Frank Eshelman, Ph.D., a retired engineering professor with 361/2 years of teaching at the high school and college level, has written the MicroChem Kit for high school students to prepare them for college chemistry. The kit has won the Best in Science 2004 award from Homeschooling Parent and is recommended by Homeschool Entrichment, The Link, and Homeschooler News. It is one of Cathy Duffy's Top 100 Picks.
MicroChem is a one year curriculum supplement which coordinates with a variety of chemistry curriculums. It includes a suggested experiment order to use with the following curriculums: A Beka Chemistry Precision and Design 2nd ed; ACE Ministries School of Tomorrow Chemistry Series 1996 ed.; Alpha Omega Publication Science Grade 11 Chemistry; Apologia (Exploring Creation with Chemistry 2nd ed.; BJU Chemistry for Christian Schools 2nd ed.; Christian Light's Science 1100 Chemistry; Glencoe Science Chemistry: Matter and Change; and Prentice Hall Chemistry. So, if you are using any of these curriculums, you can immediately incorporate the experiments into your lesson plans with ease. Other titles in the Quality Science Kit series are: MicroPhySic Kit for Middle School / High School Physical Science; Biology Kit for College Prep Biology, Add-On Organic Chemistry Kit; Physics Kit for College Prep Physics. There are no add-on modules or kits for advanced biology, chemistry, and physics. Further lab studies in these areas will require a different source.
The MicroChem Kit is affordable and compact, shipping a plastic case the size of a large shoe box. It contains a step-by-step laboratory manual with 17 experiements and almost all of the reagents and equipment necessary to complete each experiment. The items you provide are readily available at your local grocery store or pharmacy. The only items you may need to special order are a voltmeter (usually a $20-$50 expense) and a hot plate (usually $50-$100). The chemical reagents are supplied in clearly labeled dropper bottles; therefore, the chemicals are ready to use immediately with no further mixing or preparation; allowing for quicker set up and clean up time and a highly reduced risk of spilling. A drawback to the dropper bottles is that there is room for human error in terms of miscounting drops or not dispensing the correct drop size.
The unique aspect of the "micro" kit is that it uses 1/100 of the chemicals a typical lab would use. You will be provided with enough reagent to do each experiment 5 times, which will allow you to re-do the experiment if a mistake has been made in set-up or to allow a sibling to also run the experiment.
The lab manual is written in a clear, concise manner with question answers in the back of the manual. This allows students to do the experiments on their own without outside help. Each experiment contains an introduction; however, the introductions are not very detailed, so you will need to depend on your text to provide the information necessary to allow your student to learn the most from each experiment. There is also no discussion of the scientific method or how to write a lab report included in the lab manual. If you want your high schooler to write lab reports, a necessary skill for college level science, then you will need to make sure that your text or a different source offers that instruction. The questions at the end of each lab are primarily observational in nature with very little math. Learning by observation is definitely valuable, especially in chemistry; however, math is a critical component of the chemistry lab experience as well. Additionally the dropper reagents don't allow for preparation of solution, such as a .1M sucrose solution.
Overall, this high school science lab curriculum will complement your base text to give a solid foundation in chemistry, but it may not be the best choice to prepare a prospective science major for college level science courses.
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msangiorge
- Reviewed on Friday, August 08, 2008
- Grades Used: 8-10
- Dates used: 2006-2008
I would like to highly recommend Quality Science Labs, LLC as a source for lab kits. They have kits for Physical Science, Biology, and Chemistry. The kits are coordinated with curriculum from A Beka, ACE Ministries School of Tomorrow, Alpha Omega Publications, Apologia (Wile), BJU Press, and Christian Light Education. I actually made sure this year that we got the A Beka Biology text just so that we could use QSL again. I tried to individually price the materials that we would need and the cost
was absolutely prohibitive. Check out their website which has very complete product descriptions. http://www.qualitysciencelabs.com
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