Exploring Creation with Physical Science Textbook (3rd Edition)

Apologia Science courses are written from a Biblical worldview with the homeschool in mind. At the elementary level, courses follow a Charlotte Mason-inspired methodology, with lessons organized around narration, notebooking exercises and hands-on activities or projects. Children at different ages can use these together, learning at their own level. Each course is designed to be teacher-student interactive, so teacher involvement is fairly high at this level. At the junior high and high school levels, science courses are more traditional in nature, with the textbook written to the student. Teacher involvement time at this level is much less than at the elementary level. Textbooks contain student reading, lab instructions, "On Your Own" questions and Study Guide questions. A Solutions Manual provides the answers to these and the test questions. Lab kits are available separately for both the elementary and upper-level science courses which include most of the harder to find items you will need.

The 3^rd edition has been completely revised compared to the 1^st and 2^nd editions. Maintaining a Creation focused, rigorous approach to the sciences, the updated content changes are a more natural progression of Apologia's upper level scope and sequence that began with the General Science, 3rd edition. A careful introduction to the scientific process, methods, and measurement/data collection are covered in the first module, followed by a focus on chemistry (4 modules) and physics (6 modules). Additional chapters cover earth science (2 modules), and chemistry and physics in the life sciences. Physical Science Research concludes the course, showing students what is involved in research from brainstorming to making a presentation. A total of 15 modules are included, and will take 2 or more weeks to complete. Students should plan on spending one hour per day on science. Like the previous courses, the text is written to the student and most students will be able to complete the readings and most activities independently. Labs are integral, with 29 formal experiments and 47 "Explore More" activities included. Hands-on experiments use household supplies. Safety glasses are required. For your convenience, a Nature's Workshop Plus Lab Kit is available. Students will learn how to create both informal and formal lab reports in this course. Completion of all lab activities are expected, and students will document all labs through either the informal or formal report. One formal lab report is completed per module. Not compatible with the previous edition.

There are 2 required components. First is the softcover Student Text which includes all student reading, experiments, "On Your Own" exercises (with answers and discussion later in the chapter), and Study Guide questions at the end of each chapter. The second book, Solutions and Tests, contains the chapter test booklet, answers to the test questions and solutions to the "Study Guide" questions. Tests are not reproducible. Test booklets can be purchased separately.

Optional but recommended, the Student Notebook, provides a suggested daily schedule, a place to record study notes, lab charts and tables and space to answer the "On Your Own" and Study Guide questions. Not reproducible. Also available, the optional Audio MP3 CD provides an audio reading of the textual information and "On Your Own" questions.