Weekly Resource: Novare Science

It took a while for me to get to the Society for Classical Learning talks about math and science. That was this year's theme but it's not my top priority with young students.  I am glad that I listened and was especially drawn in by the talks of Dr. John Mays.  Anyone who regularly gets choked up because of the wonder of God that he finds in science and math is the kind of guy I want teaching my children these subjects.

Fortunately, he has felt the call to do just that.  He has set aside teaching in the classroom to pursue the publishing of a series of middle and high school science and eventually math curricula - Novare Science and Math.   I think his tag line - Mastery. Integration. Kingdom. - pretty much says it all.

I have not actually used his texts, but from his talks I know they are the types of resources we will seriously consider once we get to that point.  I was so pleased to find a series that takes developing a scientific mind seriously, while also keeping Creation in view.  I think we might have at least one scientist in the family and I want to prepare him to do well and keep the faith.

Mays is very intentional about integrating history and writing into both of these subject areas.  In fact, he has a whole book dedicated to teaching students how to write lab reports.  One review says that it might be too difficult for high school students - but he developed and used it in a 9th grade classical school setting.  He was frustrated with science lab sheets that were simply fill in the blank and took away the thinking part of science.  Now students have a guide for creating their own lab reports to show what they have learned - not what a textbook expected them to learn.  Much of the talk he gave about mathematics at the Society for Classical Learning was about integrating math into your history curriculum.  It was interesting listening.

So, although I have not seen the materials in person, I highly recommend that if you are in the market for a middle or high school science curriculum that you consider this option.