Homeschooling in science

[akmom]

After much consideration, my husband and I chose to put our daughter into public school. She just finished kindergarten, and I have two more kids at home who will start school in the next few years too.

One of my concerns about sending her to public school is the science curriculum - specifically biological evolution. I don't want to shield her from a secular education, but I do want her to grow up learning the creation model as well. When I went to college, there were many freshmen from evangelical families who were overwhelmed by what they learned in biology, and it devastated their faith. I don't see any reason for this to happen. I think it's a shame to expect a student to suddenly process an entire worldview their first semester away from home with no guidance at all. Unforunately, churches who attempt to tackle the creation/evolution debate are often so under-educated on biological concepts (and what evolution actually is) that they lack any credibility with an educated audience.

I want to homeschool my children over the summers at their grade level with a good Bible-based science curriculum to supplement the public school material they will learn over the school-year. I have some very old Beka books that I feel are outdated. I also found a curriculum from Answers-in-Genesis, but I have been somewhat disappointed in their other materials, so I am hesitant to try it. (Most of their authors are evangelists, not scientists, and it shows.) I am generally more pleased with materials from the Institute for Creation Research, but they don't have a comprehensive curriculum for children. I have some materials from Walt Brown that I would definitely use, but I was hoping to follow an actual curriculum with daily lessons that address a broad range of subjects at specific grade levels. Are there any homeschooling families that can recommend a good science curriculum, and explain why?

 

[cmarie423]

Personally I don't think you should worry. I was homeschooled and then I went to public school and science was always my favorite subject. I didn't have any issues with it testing my faith. It does effect some people but I was never told in school anything about evolution. My school always discredited evolution and darwinism simply because most scientists discredit it now. If your seriously worried maybe your child could go to a private school, or perhaps a christian school. I know many church schools have some form of financial aid and payment plans to help, etc. Pray about it and do what feels right to you. God will let you know.

 

[CelticRose]

Have a look here: Apologia Elementary Science : Learn, Live, and Defend the Faith

Apologia I know teaches scientific method in the upper grades & has credibility with many mainstream scientists despite having a creation oriented worldview.

 

[K9_Trainer]

Personally I don't think you should worry. I was homeschooled and then I went to public school and science was always my favorite subject. I didn't have any issues with it testing my faith. It does effect some people but I was never told in school anything about evolution. My school always discredited evolution and darwinism simply because most scientists discredit it now. If your seriously worried maybe your child could go to a private school, or perhaps a christian school. I know many church schools have some form of financial aid and payment plans to help, etc. Pray about it and do what feels right to you. God will let you know.

I'm not sure where you get that from. Speaking as somebody who is a secular biologist in the academic world, evolution is widely accepted and supported across many different fields of science. Creationism is what most scientists discredit and the bulk of us have a good laugh because most "creation scientists" aren't real scientists and the supposed evidence they present is so hilariously false that we can't take it seriously. It demonstrates an obvious lack of understanding of biology and genetics, which is exactly what the OP was wanting to avoid, so definitely kudos to her for that.

Anyway, to the OP, the best you can do is present it all, the good, the bad and the ugly. Ultimately she will grow up and make her own decision on the matter. I do hope you are able to find some more credible sources and evidence to use, and do share it with me lol...I've not been the least bit impressed with what I've seen so far.

 

[lynnbeau]

I have been using Apologia for science with my kids. They love it and it is very comprehensive. The information is extremely reliable and accurate. You can get lab kits to go with the texts, which make gathering materials for experiments easier and more efficient.
Considering God's Creation is also a good curriculum. It is geared for grades 2 and up.
There are lapbooks you can do for younger children based upon the days of creation.
The Mystery of History is also an excellent resource – world history with a Christian world view.
However, I have found that the theory of evolution isn’t the only thing to be concerned about when sending your children to public school. There is also New Age, witchcraft, homosexuality, promiscuity and other false religious indoctrination. I am a certified teacher and I also teach Sunday School. The most disturbing issue I have discovered is the discrepancy in Biblical knowledge between home schooled kids and public schooled kids. I am deeply saddened by this fact. The public schooled children often believed what they were taught in school over what God’s word says, including the theory of evolution and false religions. I am sure they excelled in completing their homework and studying for school tests, but their Biblical knowledge was seriously deficient. Deuteronomy 6 says to impress the word of God onto our children, to teach God’s word at ALL times (not just for an hour every Sunday – from a Sunday School teacher!). It is the absolute and complete responsibility of the parents to teach God’s word to their children, we will be held accountable to God for what we’ve taught our children, what we’ve permitted them to learn that is contrary to His word and what we’ve taught them. Ground your children in God’s word. Teach them that everything begins with Him, including world history and science. Romans 1:20 states creation and the belief in a Creator very simply. Any other idea is just plain ignorance.

 

[akmom]

Thank you for your replies. I will definitely see if I can browse some Apologia material, and see how it compares to the AiG and Beka curricula. I am a little skeptical about the author's credentials, since she has only a liberal arts degree. I will never understand why so many leading authors and speakers on creation, who claim to be so passionate about the sciences, fail to even get a degree in one! I must admit, I do find it somewhat arrogant that a person would tackle something as large as the controversy over evolution without at least being properly educated in their opponent's viewpoint. Of course I do not expect every parent - or even teacher - to get a college degree in every subject they present to their children. But I do think it's a reasonable expectation for a person who makes their living by giving speeches across the country and selling books on that matter. That is, however, beyond the scope of what I'm looking for now, which is just a guide to follow while presenting the creation account to my own children.

I expect them to get the evolution account at school, and I don't want to shield them from that either. I appreciate your input, Lynnbeau, but I don't believe that hiding information is the right approach to dealing with controversial topics. I believe it's important for them to know about the world around them, and what others think and why. Shall Christians never participate in the sciences? Is a person's faith really meaningful if they have never heard of anything different?

I appreciate your encouragement, Cmarie, although that has not been my experience in public school nor at a public university. I got my degree in a biological science field, and my husband in geology, and evolution was very much a "core" concept. I don't have a problem with the concept of periodic mutations, natural selection, reproductive barriers or genetic drift, and I do want my daughter to learn it. My concern is how it is extrapolated to say that humans evolved from the same ancestral primate as apes, or that all complex life evolved from single-cellular organisms, or that life originated from a "primordial soup" in a way that has never been replicated. It's not that I even want to shield her from hearing this explanation or knowing its popularity among mainstream scientists; it's just that the whole package is ambitiously pushed by academia, when many elements are unsupported.

For example, periodic mutations do occur - as replications of DNA segments, deletions, or garbled sequences that do not code for any protein synthesis - but the kind of higher-order evolution that would be required to create a more complex organism with completely new functions is not explained by any of these three types of mutations. And a beneficial mutation involving new information, which actually codes for the synthesis of proteins that create a functional feature, hasn't actually been observed - just inferred. And to me, that kind of complexity is God's design, as is the initial creation of life. Unfortunately, creationists tend to stumble over this and declare that no beneficial mutations have ever been observed, which is not technically true. The rest is mostly straw man attacks, which serve no purpose but to confuse students later when they learn that evolution is nothing like what creationists have presented it to be in order to refute it.

Nonetheless, I think the principle of evolution - that organisms change over time - is a crucial explanation for how infinite organisms adapted to diverse environments around the globe. I still believe that God created the world in a week and made man in His image. And discussing theories about the natural world is fascinating when it is not suppressed by fear or taunting, and participants debate ideas respectfully.

 

[lynnbeau]

I don't hide opposing viewpoints things from my children either - it is not a good thing, I agree (not sure where you got that from since I didn't suggest to hide the topics from your children). It is very important to teach what various other beliefs are but at the same time use God's word to show why we don't believe it. My children are very familiar with evolution, New Age, Hinduism, Confucianism, humanism, Buddhism, etc - but they also know how those do not line up with the word of God and why they aren't truth.
Also, I don't believe someone should be written off simply because they don't have a science degree behind their name. A person can be very knowledgeable and educated in any given field without a degree. I rarely agree 100% with the curricula I use, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't use it. However, since you seem to be very experienced in the sciences, then I think that maybe you do not need any type of text or program for your children, just your own knowledge.

 

[akmom]

I apologize, Lynnbeau; I misunderstood a portion of your post. "[W]e will be held accountable to God for what we’ve taught our children, [and] what we’ve permitted them to learn that is contrary to His word." I took that to mean that we should prevent our children from learning about anything that is contrary to the Bible. (And evolution as a theory of origins is, I believe, contrary to the Genesis account.) I "learned" about evolution and other religions in a combination of private school and homeschool, but it turned out to be really inaccurate, so kudos to you if you are introducing your children to those topics in an honest manner.

I disagree that a degree isn't important, because a college education is largely about learning how to research, and people who rely on Google searches and publications from subjective sources aren't ever getting the full picture. It seems they don't have enough general knowledge to even know what kinds of questions to ask, let alone get accurate answers. And the criticism of evolution is typically very shallow, which shows me that these people are far less knowledgeable than they believe themselves to be. They never cite reputable scientific journals, because they aren't even familiar with them, nor the scientific methodology, or how to interpret results of a study. They just rely on popular literature to decipher it for them. I understand that mainstream scientific journals (which Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal is not) won't explicitly address creation, but there's a wealth of information in the details.

I personally feel that education should be structured, so I always follow a text. There is plenty of room to fill in the gaps with personal knowledge and relevant information that turns up during a lesson, but I don't think these things are adequate alone. My field of expertise is very narrow and I don't think that one person alone (whatever their background) can produce a broad and balanced curriculum from the wells of their own memory.

 

[Leggomyegolas]

Personally I don't think you should worry. I was homeschooled and then I went to public school and science was always my favorite subject. I didn't have any issues with it testing my faith. It does effect some people but I was never told in school anything about evolution. My school always discredited evolution and darwinism simply because most scientists discredit it now. If your seriously worried maybe your child could go to a private school, or perhaps a christian school. I know many church schools have some form of financial aid and payment plans to help, etc. Pray about it and do what feels right to you. God will let you know.

That must have changed in the last 13 years or so then, because it was still going strong when I graduated from high school.