BIOLOGY 101: Plant Life

For High School Biology, we are using the Biology 101 DVD curriculum as our core. It is a 4-DVD set which covers biology (a.k.a. the study of life) using the 6 days of Biblical creation as an outline. Each segment (a total of 9) runs from 20-45 minutes each, and include plant life, aquatic (water) creatures, avian (flying) creatures, land animals, mankind, and genetics. On the 4th disc, there is also a printable guidebook (reading material), quizzes, answer key, and an accreditation booklet (lesson plan.

This curriculum can be used in a variety of different ways, depending on your needs. I know of a couple families who watched the DVD segments, and then used them as a starting point for further research on a topic of interest. Others only use the DVD as a supplement to a textbook.

As for us, I have made my own lesson plans and we are doing the following:

1. Watching each of the DVD segments (sometimes twice)
2. Reading the included Guidebook (2-3 pages at a time)
3. Taking the Quizzes (but doing them open-book)
4. Using some of the recommended Labs in the lesson plans
5. Additional Science kits (Labs) from The Young Scientists Club
6. A frog dissection kit (coming in the mail from Home Science Tools)
7. Watching videos on You Tube about topics mentioned on the DVD
8. Doing some additional light reading from books on each topic

So far, it is going well. This week, we finished learning about Plant life and we worked on a plant lab about seeds, fruits, and other plant parts (Kit #28 from Set 10 of The Young Scientists Series)

We made a small "terrarium" with charcoal, soil, seeds, and water.

  

A few days later, you can see the condensation forming which waters the growing seeds.

We put celery stalks in water with food coloring.

A couple days later, you can see how the "veins" in the celery absorbed the colored water.

We put a garlic clove in a glass with wet cotton balls and observed it for a week. After several days, it started to grow little white roots.

 

A couple days after that, a green root was sprouting on the other end.

We also learned that cucumbers are not a vegetable, but a fruit. If it has seeds, it is a fruit. So, tomatoes and pumpkins are also fruits. A vegetable is a part of a plant that can be eaten, such as a stem (celery), leaves (lettuce), or roots (carrots).

Now that we are done with the PLANTS section, we are moving on to Aquatic animals.