<p>So this is going to be hard to explain since, based on the title, your answers would be to "take more science classes."</p>
<p>Well right now I am in AP Physics 2 and AP Biology at school (and have taken AP Calculus, and currently in AP Statistics). I really want to try to expand my science knowledge beyond the classroom. For example, with physics I want to learn about basic phenomena and how they work, but also a lot of the modern physics stuff, since I won't get to even touch on that in my class until the end of this school year. Same thing goes for AP Bio, but I'd like to learn about different tissues/parts of the body, genetics, etc. I want to do this mainly because I just enjoying learning new things about science that haven't been taught in class necessarily. Another part of me wants to learn more for my school's academic trivia team that I just joined this year as well. I feel like I can never answer anything unless it's something we've learned in class, but then it's something that many other people know as well.</p>
<p>Hopefully that makes sense...I can elaborate if needed as well. Any advice? What have other people on here done for situations like this?</p>
<p>That’s what I was thinking of doing, @dsi411. I have my AP Physics textbook too; we only cover the second half of it due to the curriculum of the new AP course, but I could always read over the chapters before it to learn more about the mechanics topics (at the AP level).</p>
<p>@DreamSchlDropout I haven’t heard of those, so I will need to look them up!</p>
<p>I’ve also thought of starting MIT’s OpenCourseWare thing as well. I’m sure that will provide a really good challenge.</p>
<p>Science magazines are also a good recommendation. </p>
<p>I’m a particular fan of Science News, which does a better job than most lay science publications of simply putting recent science into context for a general audience without adding a lot of hype. It’s also cheap and comes biweekly. It has a student edition but at a college-bound age you should simply get the standard edition.</p>
<p>I recommend professional publications. Even if you just read the abstract, introduction, and conclusion of a paper, it can be really insightful. It can also help you see what research is currently being done in these fields.You never know, you could find yourself inspired for science fair or an independent research paper. A lot of times, it can be difficult to find papers that are free full-text, but there are plenty out there.</p>
<p>College textbooks are great. I’m reading an Astronomy one and an Earth Science one at the moment.</p>
<p>Also Wikipedia. At first, you’ll have no idea what you’re reading, but later, you’ll figure it out and it’s really great.</p>
<p>Science magazines help you learn a little, but they’re mainly on research, not general concepts. They’re also written at a lower level–I could understand most of them in sixth grade. However, they are incredibly interesting at times. I like Discover a lot.</p>
<p>From what it sounds like, science magazines/publications will be one way to go, and Wikipedia might be another! Thanks everyone! This helps so much.</p>
<p>Now, to find the time to regularly read the magazines…</p>
<p>A website that explains a lot of that type of stuff on a simple level is howstuffworks.com. This might help for academic trivia. Also there is stuff on YouTube like scishow and ASAP science. For more indepth stuff your library probably has a ton of science books or you could buy textbooks. </p>