Multiple periods for lab science?

On CC, I have often seen many people having to spend two periods for science classes because of the “lab” component. At my HS you just spend one period per class regardless of what class it is so people can take 2-3 sciences a year. There just aren’t that many labs in our course curriculums that a separate period can be justified, in fact my AP Physics C class doesn’t do a single lab throughout the entire year. I thought that AP curriculums were fairly standardized. I am curious to how this separate lab system works and how common it is among high schools. Do y’all have like one period a week where you go have weekly labs or is there like a lab to go along with every day of lessons? It seems a little excessive to me but I am interested in hearing other people’s views and experiences on this.

At my school, we have this weird block scheduling. Three days a week, we have all eight of the periods. The remaining two, we have half of the periods (all the even ones on one day and the odd on the next). AP Sciences (only) have an additional period on block days. So, for example, let’s say you take AP Bio. The school offers it period 4, but you alos have to sign up for 5. On normal days, you have 5 study hall and the class 4, but on block days, you would have it both 4 and 5.

The situation is a little confusing and students that take their first AP science struggle at first. This only applies to AP science classes; honors and academic ones do not have an additional lab period.

In my experience, our teachers don’t really use this as a lab period (except we did a lot in physics). They do sometimes, but the labs usually fall on other days, or they use it as an opportunity to teach more. I felt that in my Honors Bio class freshman year, we were more likely to have a block-day lab than in AP.

I really don’t like the block day scheduling in general, and I feel that it is too much. It’s weird that you don’t have any labs though. The College Board always has some lab-based questions on the AP exam.

What type of school do you attend?

When I was in highschool I took all AP sciences and we did a lot of labs. We had an extra period for the labs so chem would be 1.5 hours = class plus lab. Block scheduling. At both my kids’ schools same thing, science have lab periods. Block scheduling allows it. AP science should have lab time but if you are at a public school that doesn’t have the funding you may not get the lab portion.

My D’s school scheduled science classes during the middle part of the day which had extended class periods because of lunches. I heard talk that they were going to shift them to 1st period and have early start for lab days once/week I’m not sure if the school ever did that.

That said, she hardly had any labs at all in AP physics C.

My niece’s school is on a block schedule and they have extended blocks twice/week for science to allow for labs.

Back in my day we had an extra period for lab 2-3/week. It alternated with PE which was mandatory all 4 years. Some weeks you had PE three days, the others, lab.

I think the answer to your question though is that it’s highly variable!

PS. My D just took her 3rd semester of college physics and there wasn’t one lab in the entire class, just the prof doing lab demos occasionally.

In my D’s high school, there are 8 classes on a 4-day rotating block schedule. All science classes meet on each of the 4 days, regardless if it is an AP, IB, or regular level class. We live in NY and students have to take and pass state mandated and administered exams called Regents to satisfy graduation requirements. If you take an AP class, you still have to take the Regents exam in June, unless you are taking AP Physics as a senior. NY requires students/teachers to provide documentation and lab reports for 1200 minutes of lab experience per science class. Most AP students take 2 AP science classes, one as a junior and one as a senior, because the scheduling is problematic unless you don’t play a musical instrument or you drop your foreign language. Typical order is Bio, Earth Science, Chem, Physics but advanced students take Earth Science for high school credit in 8th grade, honors bio in 9th, honors Chem in 10th, AP Physics in 11th and either AP Bio or AP Chem in 12th (with additional, more advanced labs not covered in honors).

In our school district, all lab sciences meet 7 periods a week - 5 days during one period and 2 days in an adjacent period.

There are a few options to make this happen:

  • Study hall 3 days per week in the adjacent period.
  • The required one semester/5 day gym class is broken into 3 days/wk of the adjacent period one semester and 2 days/wk the other semester, so you have one study hall period per week half the year
  • Two lab sciences, offset by 2 periods, with the intermediate period being 2 days of each lab and 1 study hall day.

Now a Mechanical Engineering Junior, my D found the lab work very valuable. She’s spending time with machine tools, additive manufacturing machines, wind tunnels, etc., in design/project courses, and her senior project requires building a finished model of their project. HS labs, plus engineering classes, helped prepare for this. There’s a lot of value doing and seeing things vs. reading about them, IMO.

In DD’s HS, AP Bio and AP Chem are both 1.5 periods, AP Physics C is only 1 period, BUT you need both AP Physics 1 & 2 as a prerequisite (not according to the College Board, but our high school set its own rules here), which is 1.5 periods for the two combined classes. APES is only 1 period.

We have what is called a “zero hour” which starts about 1/2 hour before school starts. Students have the option of using that zero-hour class for the extra 1/2 class period (then they will be assigned to first period science, so it runs as a continuous class), OR they can give up half of their 45-minute lunch period (they will be scheduled with science for third period and half of fourth, then go to lunch the second half of 4th period). If they have enough credits, they can take a “second” full lunch period, but the kids in these levels of classes don’t tend to do that (more apt to take an elective).

@one1ofeach I attend a public high school which is really big (500-600 students per grade) and is over the maximum capacity. But, we live in a pretty wealthy and high-achieving area so it is not poor, our school specifically might get less funding but idk.

I think the reasons for this is that we already did multiple labs in Physics 1 and Physics C is essentially a more mathematically-inclined version of Physics 1.