I need some direction.
DD(11) is extremely frustrated by the lack of rigor and the snail's pace of instruction in her high school courses (she attends a virtual public school).
Now, we don't know for sure-- that *could* change next year with the addition of AP courses (Environmental Science and World History), but I'm not really banking on it given the scope of the problem in the "honors" coursework.
DD sat down with us over the past few weeks and hammered out a few things that could go onto a "wish" list of interests. The largest problem is in trying to do "enrichment" that isn't going to make her current dissatisfaction WORSE in the coming four years (since she's officially only in 8th grade at the moment and we're trying to delay her HS graduation until she's 15). She wanted advanced chemistry or physics-- which we're entirely capable of teaching her, (with materials on-hand, probably), but given that this is material that she's expected to take again... not a good idea, sadly.
It's possible for her to propose a well-designed independent study course (provided that it isn't a subject offered by her school, nor is it something commonly an extracurricular activity like, say, martial arts or music). Astronomy, more than all of the other things on her list, seems the most likely candidate.
She's most interested in astrophysics, anyway, so this is fine. BUT-- this is well out of our areas of expertise and she's not had calculus or trig yet, so we're thinking that about junior-college or Gen-Ed level is what we're looking for here.
DD's learning style is highly amenable to audio-visual instruction, written materials, and didactic pedagogy.
So far, for possible resources, we have:
a) The Great Courses
Understanding The Universe, an Introduction to Astronomy,2nd Ed. (She's had experience with TGC materials before, and the DVD format actually works very well for her.)
b) a
GalileoScope telescope kit,
and
??
I'm thinking that trying to get
Dr. Filippenko's Astronomy text to go with the course might be a good thing...
But I'm curious to hear some feedback from others who have had high-school level kids doing independent study. What am I overlooking here??
What kinds of "projects" do you think would be a good fit for this?(In order to get HS credit for it as an IS elective, she will have to have some plan for assessment-- but a research paper will NOT be her idea of a good time.)
I've designed a lot of laboratory instruction in my day... but I'm kind of clueless with earth and space science. Advice is greatly appreciated.
