Interesting about science. In both D19’s current school and her previous school, the typical path is honors bio, honors chem, then one or more of AP Bio/Chem/Physics. Each of AP Bio, AP Chem, or AP Physics can be taken after Chem and Algebra 2 (typically junior year). School also has AP Environmental Science, with a pre-req of Bio and Chemistry.
I posted earlier about D19’s math troubles with honors Alg 2. She’s still having trouble (her two quizzes are 65% and 77%) and now says she’s probably not going to take the honors version of Pre-Calc next year. This is a girl who got over 100% both semesters of geometry last year. She really doesn’t like the teacher and apparently many of her classmates feel the same way.
And FWIW, coding before sophomore year doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve got a kid who’ll major in a STEM field. My daughter has been coding/hacking for fun since she was in late elementary/early middle school, and yes, she’s thinking about engineering (as I posted a few days ago), but my money’s still on her going into something design-related instead.
Ooooh. AP Environmental Science. Had to look that up. Yep. We have it! Sounds a little brutal, though. No math prerequisite but three years of science mandatory before you take the class. Says that field trips big part of class and mandatory. Rough to miss much of your other classes for field trips but maybe I’ll ask exactly how many days would be missed. Never considered this class but I will mention it to our son and have him find out more from his GC.
Anyone out there have an older child who has taken it? Seems like the subject would be popular among the science majors in college with all of the environmental problems Earth faces right now…
Typical science track at our school is bio, then chem, then physics. All are offered either regular or honors. AP science classes are reserved for juniors or seniors who want to continue after taking the standard offering. We don’t even have earth science as an option.
My D16 took AP environmental science. It has a rep of being easier than bio, chem or physics c. I couldn’t say if that’s true or not since she didn’t take any other science APs. She only had a couple field trips - nothing major. I think the description you have may be specific to your school.
My D15 took AP environmental science and loved it. She is a non sciency kid. She found it the easiest science class she had a got an A in class and a 5 on the exam. She had a few field trips but they were all walking trips during that class period. But I agree with me29034 that these things can be very specific to your school or teacher.
We don’t have a typical science track after 10th grade. Standard would be integrated physical science honors or reg in 9th and then bio, honors or reg in 10th. After that it’s choose a lab science and the kids really scatter. We do offer APES, no pre reqs that I am aware of. It’s not considers the easiest, nor the hardest but the kids have heard that the actual AP test is quite hard. My S17 has it this year so we will see. For him, a planned ENVS major, it made sense. He will have skipped Chem entirely in HS to take it (with music there is no real option to double up on anything before senior year and at this point, zero interest now that he finally has one elective he can take lol). The lack of chem may or may not bite him later, he chose AP physics as his junior year option.
We are on day two of school here and D19 loves all her teachers except for math. (!) We are learning new routines as S22 attends the same school this year. I am dreading the end of the week, though, as theatre’s First Call is on Friday afternoon. (Insert siren call of theatre productions into the mix.)
This year we have not only some tutors in place “if needed” but also an ADHD coach. D19 is happy to have a fresh start to the school year, and I’m hoping sophomore year is much, much better than last.
@homerdog, as @mom23travelers implies, AP Enviro is considered a relatively easy science and AP (though from comments on the 16 thread, I personally think mom23’s daughter is a rockstar and she is just being modest).
I do suspect APES depends on the teacher. S17’s teacher, who is head of the department, is not known for being easy (the reverse of course lol) and will generally go beyond the curriculum. We shall see! I hope there are field trips, he’d love that!
First day of 10th grade in the books for my d19. It went very well, no awful classes. Still not excited by Spanish but the teacher she currently has seems nice and likes technology, which she considers a plus. Apparently, the teacher her class was supposed to have is on maternity leave and so instead of going with a long term sub, the rest of the department decided to each take a class of hers. They aren’t positive if she is taking 6 months or the entire year. Either way, I really appreciate the Spanish teachers did this. Part of the reason she hated Spanish so much last year was because the first 6 weeks was taught by various subs, some of whom couldn’t even speak Spanish. She felt like the class really was behind from the beginning and it was so frustrating. Even if she has to switch to the original teacher after maternity leave, one change while still having a good teacher until then is a huge improvement.
Great first day report from S19. The honors english teacher is “odd” but he loves the mix of kids in his class so has decided the quality of the classmates overrides her reputation for the moment. Precalc has a surprising number of sophomores (8) so he’s thrilled about that, looks like they put almost all of the eligible ones in his class.
Honors chem is odd in reverse. As I mentioned 2 of his friends who both should be qualified to take it were turned down and put in regular chem. There is only 1 honors chem class/period for the entire school (so unpopular they didn’t even have enough kids for an honors version last year lol) and there are 4 open seats. S is one of only 2 sophomores who got it of the 4 who requested it. It makes no sense, the other two are arguably better students as far as I know. I told him he’d better get a good grade!!!
Thanks for all the reassurances that S19 is not doomed from a STEM career if he is not already coding/engineering/inventing, etc. He is mostly staring at his phone and playing his bass, haha. However, I live in the land of kids being sent off to STEM camps for the summer or doing internships with STEM companies in HS, so it’s easy to lose perspective. The kid isn’t going to be applying to MIT, so yeah, I guess it doesn’t matter so much if he’s not into STEM hobbies at 14/15.
His school is also one with no 9th grade “earth science” - however kids choose between Physics and Geosystems as their “physical science” in 11th grade. They replaced honors physics with AP Physics 1 a year or two ago. It looks like they allow AP Physics C to be taken concurrently with calculus, but that sounds like a nightmare. I’m assuming that S19 will like chemistry more than bio and physics more than chemistry, so he could end up with two years of physics to finish out HS. Basically, the more math the better - he can focus on math in a way he can’t focus on reading/writing/busy work, so the AP English/social science courses probably won’t happen for him.
@eh1234 My DS19 is a CS major who has never attended a summer camp or internship and is attending an Honors program on close to a full ride. It can work out. The CC community is not a good indication of the general population.
Day 3 for S19. We had a brief panic last week when schedules were released and he was only in 1 of 4 honors classes we fought to have him enrolled in. An original email to his guidance counselor said the schedule reflected a change in district policy (which was never communicated). After my DW pressed a bit magically the schedule was changed the day before school started.
S19 is smart, more than he gives himself credit for, but has to work a little harder for things and put himself behind the 8 ball grade wise the last two years because he refused to recognize he actually needs to study (unlike S16). So far we’ve seen a bit of a turn-around in attitude about getting his work done. Hopefully it sticks.
Next week I get to start driving him to school every. single. day. as he needs to be in early to help produce the daily Morning Show (shown over the school’s closed circuit network).
@dbjs70 I hear you about taking your S to school every day…I take both kids to school (our S19 and our middle school daughter). Each school is only about 1.5 miles away but the bus takes forever and I can drive them in ten minutes. Extra sleep for them and I’m up anyway. Plus, S19 likes to go early to visit with teachers so he would never get to do that if he took the bus and got there ten minutes before the first bell! They are lucky to have us as drivers! :))
I would put my kids on the bus daily in a heartbeat. :)) Even if it does take 30 minutes versus 10-15. All that quality bonding time!
Heck yesterday we had drama and video from it, I’d miss out on the entertainment factor. New bus driver tried to go up a hill that was FAR too steep for the bus (in a misguided attempt to turn around). Bus got stuck. Kids got off bus while driver panicked and tried to figure it out (picture back tires spinning, making smoke, teenagers catching it all on phone video). Driver got it figured out but I feel SO bad for him! I am sure some helicopter freshman parent has complained and the driver is in trouble but my kids thought it was hilarious. Plus it was literally up the hill from us and they knew they could walk home.
Sadly, the early bird catches the jazz music and that means driving them in the morning. S17 has not demonstrated the ability for me to trust him with that privilege yet (nor is there an extra car for him to use even if he had). Allowing S16 to get his license now simply b/c S17 terrifies us behind the wheel seems a bit uncool (and there still isn’t an extra car).
We are however, hoping to bribe one of S17’s classmates to do the dirty jazz band carpool work but that remains to be seen. The late bird gets to run so I’ve got XC carpools at the other end of the day. Which really means I’m all talk on this bus thing most of the time, the fact of the matter is the majority of the time it’s not really an option.
Son17 has been catching a ride to school with son19, taking my car!! Going to have to get them back on the bus. They get an extra 15 minutes in the morning by driving though. We only own 2 cars, so they’ve just been taking mine and leaving my wife’s car here. I use that and she only gripes a little bit
S19 has been getting a ride from a senior that lives across the street. It beats catching the bus at 6:30 which I though he was doomed to do when D16 when off to college.
