Preparing for Science Courses
In high school, a student will be good in science and
technology courses only if he or she masters logic, fractions and
solving two equations in two unknowns.
Before your son or daughter takes a science lesson, teach
them to cook. Following a recipe, requires collecting all the
ingredients, reading and understanding instruction, stirring, mixing and
apply heat, and then cleaning up.
Cooking at home is good practice for science "
experiments." Every son or daughter, no matter how intelligent, who
is barred from cooking is at a disadvantage. Sons, and not only
daughters, would benefit from the recipe following skills acquired in
cooking. Besides this cooking is a survival skill before and after
leaving home.
Labs and Science experiments in school in principle
represent processes with repeatable and reproducible results. Yet as
with cooking, the first time one follows a recipe, the result may not be
as it should be due to errors in the process. Students are often graded
on experiments done once. So care is required in collecting all the
ingredients, reading and understanding instruction, stirring, mixing and
apply heat, recording what happens and then cleaning up.
With grading and marks dependent on what is reported, and
its agreement with expectation, honest reporting of what happened may
suffer -- reporting that a process failed to give the right result is
penalized. But in actual science labs, a new procedure is non-routine. It
is usually tried and repeated until it becomes routine. Then results
become repeatable and reproducible. (A student may quote this whole
paragraph in response to being penalized for not falsifying (cooking) the
results of in-class experiments. The teacher in reply should direct the
student to learn to cook or follow recipes at home.)
Science labs or experiments in school may also be used to
illustrate situations and thereby provide evidence for this or that
physical or chemical principle. The notion of a science experiment comes
from the ideas of creating a test to decide whether or not a law
(relationship) holds or a process works. An understanding of the benefits
and limitations of rule and pattern based is required. The latin roots of
the word "prove" is test. Putting a concept to the proof means to test
it. Mathematics and science depend on proofs or tests of methods and
wanted conclusions.
The presentation of science (chemistry, physics and
biology) in high school and college is largely descriptive. But chemistry
and physics may further involve computation and chains of reasoning
(stories) to follow and understand. Computations in chemistry and physics
at the high school level in North America regretfully only relies on a
mastery of algebra, a little trigonometry and no calculus.
The ability to solve two equations in two unknowns, to graph one
quantity versus another, to use quadratic formula, to use a calculator,
to follow short chains of reason is sufficient, regretfully, to shine in
the theoretical and computational parts of most North American high
school science courses.
Explain the the first logic
chapters with your child. Start with the easiest ideas first. If your
child does not understand, wait. These appetizers are hard for a
ten year old, less hard for a fourteen year old, and hopefully very easy
for a sixteen year old.
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Secondary
Mathematics for Ages 11+, A Practical Approach for home-tutoring or -schooling, or for schools & colleges
with local curriculum control. Study how to include site content - its skill development how-TOs and innovations
into present or future lesson plans - some reading required.
Road
Safety Messages and Questions: When and why should you face
traffic when walking along a road or cycle path? Is it a good
idea to hang limbs outside of cars etc? What gives more
protection in a crash: a car, motorbike or bicycle?
See too, the BBC-Belgium story Texting and
Driving - texting & the impossible test - the article links to a gruesome utube video on the subject
The Logic of Injustice:
How Texas sent
an innocent man to his death - The wrong Carlos. Some judgments are irreversible. Procescution: Where and when prosectors play to win rather than for
justice, guilt beyond a reasonable doubt goes unrespected due to prosecutors who putting winning
first, those innocence before the law may be convicted. Some procescutors offices in continuing to accuse after a pardon
due to reasonable doubt or innocent being shown, may sucessfully oppose compensaton for false convictions
by asserting a pardon individual is still under suspicion. Then the pardoned individual or the latter's estate
is not compensation for years or decade
of improper or false imprisonment, or for execution. Site chapters on Logic
and some in Pattern
Based Reason may slowly lead to greater precision in reading, applying and
writing laws.
May 2012, Composition Starting:
Pre-School and Primary Mathematics - Quantitative Skills, An
Intellectual View, Feedback Welcome:
The 8 Most Popular Site Inlinks
Parent Center: Help your child or teen
learn:
Parent-friendly
Work Booklets for ages 3+ to 13 Use these or others to check
or build skills. Other booklets are available but these booklets
allow parents unsure of themselves in mathematics to help their
children. The selection acquired in Canada is published in the
USA. So it has a US orientation. In retrospect, the selection
shows parents what to check with the booklets or by other ways,
the choice is theirs. But in retrospect, the selection does not
cover integral and fractions liquid weights and measures - ask
the publishers to correct that! For ages 9 to 12 say, parents may
compensate by showing boys and girls how to use weights or mass,
and further measures in food preparation. Beyond that children
may be shown how to measure and calculate angles, lengths and
areas [proportional amounts too] directly or by using maps and
plans drawns to scale. Learning how to gather and measure all the
ingredients, pots and pans for a dish or a meal, along with
cleaning up sets the stage for like activities or experiments in
science courses, and in developing organizational skills,
gives boys and girls a head start. Good luck. At the other
extreme, more comprehensive than light, if your motto is
McCainian: drill, drill, drill then Toronto
mathematician and actor John Mighton's jump math organization has jump math
workbooks for at least grades 3 to 8 for at-home and in-school
use - training sessions for teachers available. Jump math has
been expanding to cover older students. Jump Math Samples: plus
Fractions for
Grades 3-4 & Grades 5-6 [Read] Free Resources grades 1 to 8
[unread - likely to be good]. and
Mathematics
Skills For Ages 3 to 14 - technical!
Skills with take
home value - A few ideas
Basic skills include
time-date-calendar Matters; money matters; map, plan and
scale diagram matters;counting, measuring and figuring;
decision making with logic and likelyhood; being careful and
being aware of the domino effect of mistakes; reading and
writing with precision.
Is your child able to add, subtract and multiply amounts
of money, work with fractions, work with clocks and calendars,
work with maps and plans, and measure length, weight-mass and
volume? Schools may promote your son or daughter without
providing basic skills in reading, writing and
arithmetic.
Arithmetic
and Number Theory Skills
Algebra
Starter Lessons
Geometry
- maps plans trigonometry vectors
More
Algebra
70
Calculus Starter Lessons
Calculus Lessons Elsewhere:
-
How to Ace Calculus: Street Wise Guide - Mostly
Text.
-
Flash
Video for Calculus Phobics
They cover basic topics in ways likely to complement your
notes, your textbooks and site material. When Goldilocks
trespassed in the house of the three bears, she found three bowls
of porridge, two not to her liking, and one just right. Different
bears have different tastes. As invited guest here and elsewhere,
if one or more explanations is not to liking, try another. It may
be better or just right.
Unsolicited Advice
Learning to do and high marks if it comes to easy is often
deceptive - light rather than deep. For that reason, students
with learning difficulties determined not to let it get in their
way may go deeper and farther than those with none. High marks,
if the come easy, may be deceptive - provide a too light and not
a deep mastery. That could have been your problem in secondary
school, one that leads to comprehension shock or difficulties in
calculus and more generally in the first year of college. Bon
Appetite.
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