Wow, I need a good resource to break down textbooks with math requirements. My DD9 is taking science off the grid and I don't know what will happen when she gets to high school. She has to be chronologic age before she can attend any classes at our high school and even though they say she can test out I don't know if that will be something to pursue, to many years between now and then. We have no honors track in science at our high school.

Because this is her passion I want to make sure she has the necessary math background to really grasp all the concepts not just get through them. Right now we are using the Glencoe Life Science textbook with PLATO Life Science, sadly these are considered Intro high school science in our state. We are just adding in a lot more experiments and following all the rabbit trails we can. You can see why it's hard to compare my local high school.

Ouch! What about AP?

Here are the math statements I found in the course descriptions for my son’s school. No mention of math skill level is mentioned for the Biology courses, but Bio is first offered (usually in 11th grade) after freshman physics and 10th grade chemistry, so a minimum of concurrent regular Alg 2 (after Alg1 and Geometry) is implied. Other science courses do not mention math either.

PHYSICS (all 9th grade students) This course involves a heavy dependence on algebra skills, use of calculators and graphing work.

HONORS PHYSICS (11th grade) Students should be prepared to spend a considerable amount of time in advanced problem solving on a regular basis. Use of computer data collection is prevalent.

AP PHYSICS (12th grade) Prerequisites: AP Calculus

CHEMISTRY (10th grade) Many units of study involve calculations. Therefore, a solid math background is helpful.

HONORS CHEMISTRY (10th grade) A superior math background is a requirement for honors chemistry.

AP CHEMISTRY (11th or 12th grade) The course is a rigorous math-based course, with a strong laboratory component.

My 8th grade son was allowed to accelerate in science (which is his greatest passion) beginning this year due to his prior math acceleration. He is already excited about taking honors chemistry next year, which he (and we) have heard it is an extremely intense course taught by a retired dentist/chem. PhD.

ROFL! Lego League practice (meeting?), and obviously I'm back, .

Here's an interesting use of adjectives from a school I've tutored with...

AP
Honors
Accelerated
Academic

They all sound pretty impressive, don't they?

Honors and Advanced can certainly mean very different things to different schools. From what I understand, colleges often totally disregard any designation other than AP or IB.
At my daughter’s school (top quartile students), all courses are considered a minimum of “honors level” with additional Advanced designation for some math courses.
My son’s school takes a wider range of students, so they offer at least three levels for every math course with “honors” being the highest. They do a great job of maintaining the rigor though as they only accepted a dozen students (half are international students) for his current honors geometry.

Well I guess it's going to be a moot point for our local high school unless something changes in the next few years. New requirements for the incoming graduate years will now require ALL 9th graders to take a semester of Intro to Biology (Biology I) and a semester of Intro. to Chemistry. They will also require ALL 10th graders to take a semester of Biology II.

Melissa,
Since your daughter’s interest is biology, maybe it would help to suggest the textbook that my daughter’s 10th grade class uses which her teacher says is commonly used for AP Bio. The course does seem reasonably strong, as the average grade so far is a C.

Biology Concepts and Connections by Campbell

I do not know yet which textbook her school uses for AP Bio but the current 10th grade class is a prerequisite for the AP biology.

Actually, you may not have mentioned that her interest is biology, only that her school requires a lot of it. My son’s textbook for freshman physics is Conceptual Physics by Hewitt. I bought it on EBay from a young man who had just used it for his college course.

Thank you for the textbook suggestions. I think it will be a moot point with our school unless something changes because she will not wait four years to take intro biology. We had left the door open that she might go back for some classes during high school but not if that is the new track for incoming students. Any other textbook recommendations are greatly appreciated, it gives me an idea what is being used.

My son used that same textbook last year for an integrated chemistry/physics course. I think you'll be pleased with it, he really liked it.

He is really enjoying and excelling (so far) in his physics course. I agree that the book is terrific, accessible and thorough.