black and white photo of elementary school students sitting in a classroom

Attention Rule Followers!

Novare Biology, Chemistry, Experiments, Physics

Your hang-up is ruining your kid’s science experiments Let’s face it. Many homeschooling parents (and classroom teachers) are consummate rule followers. After all, stable society is built on rules, right? The rule of law, and so on? Without rules, we descend into beasts. And we exemplify rule following if for no other reason than out of the wish to pass …

circuit board on a lab table

Why are our lab experiments so complicated?

Novare Biology, Chemistry, Experiments, Physical Science

Lab Experiments and the Goals of Science Education by John D. Mays Most science educators agree that labs are an essential part of any science course. However, the goals of the laboratory work differ significantly between the different scientific disciplines. For courses in life science, earth science, and general biology, the goals of the laboratory component are most often descriptive, …

Painting: Bouveret's Last Supper

All Things Vile and Vicious, part 3: sin or sacrament?

Novare Biology, Theology, Worldview

Part 3. Reconciling violence among the animal kingdom with the goodness of God’s Creation. It’s not because of sin. Is Predatory Animal Behavior Due to Sin? This is the third and final installment of All things Vile and Vicious. We begin with the summary questions, What do we make of fecundity, predation, and parasitism? How do we reconcile it with …

physics chemistry biology written in printer's letters

A Brief History of the B-C-P Sequence

Novare Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Teacher Resource

Biology. Chemistry. Physics. It is by far the most common sequence of science courses in high schools, and has been the default program in American high school education for several decades. But the B-C-P sequence has been the subject of criticism from many educators and scientists for over a century. In our time when science scores and aptitude are in decline nationwide, …