Supercharged Science, E-Science, a Review

 Supercharged Science, an e-science program designed by Aurora Lipper, is a fascinating new approach to teaching our children science.  I have been using this program from many weeks now and I love it.  I have mainly been focusing on the high school areas of the program for this review; however, because of the ages of my kids and my co-op students, I have been able to work in many different topics.

     Aurora Lipper is a rocket scientist turned educator.  She designed Supercharged Science as a way to help parents and educators redesign the way they teach science.  E-science has offerings for kids of all ages from kindergarten through grade 12.  It is available as a monthly membership program with K-8 for $37/month or K-12 for $57/month.  As a subscriber, you are given access to one or two units each month.  I know that doesn’t sound like a lot, at first, but let me tell you it is much more than enough.  Each unit is packed with suggested lesson plans, reading material, review questions, hands on activities, experiments, and sometimes even a quiz or two.  The experiments are one of my favorite parts!  I have been teaching science since 1986.  Yep, I’m ancient!  One struggle I have always had is that the experiments that come with my curriculum of choice aren’t always the most interesting experiments, or easy to do with a group of students.  Aurora has done such a fabulous job of creating, demonstrating, and explaining experiments for each topic that I hardly have to do any work!  You can visit this page to get more information about all of the ins and outs of Supercharged Science.

      I currently teach science in a very large co-op. My own kids take their science classes from me at our co-op. Chemistry experiments have been my nemesis.  For the past month and a half I have been going through Supercharged Science and coordinating new experiments with the topics we are studying.  We have been in thermodynamics / kinetics for quite a while and the experiments in our text are, for lack of a better term, kind of lame.  Not so with Supercharged Science!  We have made our own litmus paper, worked with catalysts by making ‘elephants toothpaste’ (a definite outside activity), burned magnesium, and made a magnesium battery.  We have also watched videos of other experiments that coordinated with our lessons like working with carbon dioxide and desalinating water.  I love the option of being able to carry out an experiment as a demonstration, let the kids do the experiment, or show the video to the class.  Kids learn in different ways and the more different types of exposures they have to material the better they learn.  The Advanced Chemistry topic area not only contains tons of experiments but also contains a link to a complete online chemistry textbook.  Aurora has taken the time to coordinate the experiments with the textbook and she includes a page for teachers/parents to be able to use and know what experiments go with what chapter of the text.  It is so helpful.  There is a complete, printable set of lesson plans / notes / questions available which is wonderful for parents and teachers.

     I also teach General Science, Physical Science, and Biology 1 and 2.  In General Science this semester we have been studying the human body.  I have been able to pull many activities from the Life Science 1 unit and the Biology 2 unit for our studies.  In Physical Science we are studying sound and light.  Unit 6, Sound, and Unit 9, Light have been great helps to me!  I struggle with ninth graders doing experiments with flashlights and prisms – experiments that I’m sure they did in elementary school.  Using simple, around the house materials, we have been able to investigate magnifying light waves, polarization, infrared light, reflection and refraction, and have made objects appear to disappear!  Whew!  In Biology 1, I have been using the Biology 1 Unit exclusively.  While our lab activities mainly revolve around dissections at this time of year, I am always needing supplemental activities.  Aurora’s videos of both vertebrates and invertebrates are beautiful and are so much more than I would have been able to afford if purchased separately.  I love being able to show my kids the beauty of God’s creation and these magnificent animals in their natural habitat.  The kids love it, too!!! My Biology 2 kids are extremely independent students.  Unfortunately, our curriculum includes slide work and dissections for the experiments – nothing else.  I like for the kids to do more hands on activities to learn concepts.  Aurora has not let me down here!  We have made a balloon model of an eye, a water lens, examined blind spots, visual reflex, and even delved into a bit of speed reading.  Once we understood how different parts of vision worked, then we did our dissections and slide work.  Our ‘boring’ slide work and eyeball dissection virtually came alive for the kids because they understood the mechanics that the different tissues affected.

     I highly recommend Supercharged Science e-science program for educators in any venue, homeschooling, public school, private school, or charter school.  It is the most complete and easy to use program I have come across in many years.  It can be used as a stand alone curriculum with ease or can be used a supplement to your existing curriculum.  I know we will be using this for years and years to come!

     To see what my friends on the Schoolhouse Review Crew have to say about Supercharged Science, click on the linky below.