7th Gr, HS Biology- Too ambitious? - Gifted Issues Discussion Forum

Next year DD10 will be 11yrs old doing 7th Grade Homeschool. One of her issues in regular school the last few years has been boredom with Science (and Math)which she normally loves. I want to ramp it up but not out of her reach. She scored a 24 on the Explore test at 9yrs/4th gr. in Science and Reading. Am I off base in thinking that she can handle a regular high school Biology curriculum?

Obviously all kids are different, but my DD13 was an 11 year old 8th grader taking Biology at the HS, and she loved it. Science has always been among her favorite classes, and is definitely a strength for her - putting her in 8th grade science or the HS general science class would have been a waste of time.

Considering your DD's score of 24, I'd say give it a try. You can always pull back on the rigor if it turns out to be too much for your DD.

Best of luck,
--S.F.

Ditto what SFrog said. My DD12 had no trouble at all with high school biology-- but-- be aware that the course DOES include some chemistry and physics concepts during the first half of the course, which covers cellular biology and micro.

I'm planning to do high school biology with my 12 year old son next year and am anticipating no problems.

My experience is junior high science is a waste of time, My DS15 is in H.S. Honors Biology and did take 8th grade science last year. The junior high curriculum was more about learning vocabulary than any real science. H.S. Biology shouldn't be too much a problem, if you DD had the reading & analytical skills. Chemistry on the other hand shouldn't be started till Algebra I has been successfully completed.

That's definitely not too ambitious! She is clearly gifted/high ability. One of the magnets in our district, which is not restricted to GT kids, allows students to earn 2 high school science credits (including biology)during middle school.

Thanks for the input. I am much more confident about trying it. Over the summer, she wants to do some basic chemistry and physics with lots of experiments. So, that should help with the overlap areas.