The Mystery of Science: Biology introduces the study of living things to students in grades four through eight in a 32-week course. The course has two components: a Student Reader and a Lab Manual. The Lab Manual is a free download, accessible using the code inside the front cover of the Student Reader. You can also order a printed copy of the Lab Manual as a package of three-hole-punched pages.
Students will also need colored pencils, a charcoal pencil, and markers for their Lab Manual drawings plus supplies for activities and experiments.
The student book is a reader rather than a textbook. Near the front is a section for parents titled “How to Use This Curriculum.” The rest of the book is information for the student to read, presented on colorful, heavily illustrated pages. It also has an extensive glossary at the back.
The course has 32 lessons arranged into eight units. The first unit presents a creationist view as foundational for understanding biology and then covers biology basics, such as the difference between living and nonliving things, the cell, and DNA. The second unit discusses the animal kingdom and the classification of mammals. The next three units cover reptiles, fish, and amphibians; birds; and mollusks, insects, and crustaceans, respectively. The sixth unit is on the human body. Unit 7 introduces the plant kingdom, and Unit 8 teaches about the kingdoms of Fungi and Protista.
Each lesson in the Student Reader includes a sidebar with a list of vocabulary words, an explanation of the origin of one of the vocabulary words, and a scripture memory verse (from the New American Standard Bible). Each lesson also has a sidebar titled “Creation Corner” that showcases an intriguing example of God’s design in creation, such as the glasswing butterfly whose transparent wings provide excellent camouflage against most backgrounds. The lesson material itself often makes mention of God and points to evidence of a master designer.
Each of the 32 lessons should take one week to complete, spending two to three hours per week. It’s best if that time is broken into four sessions per week so that students frequently review vocabulary and the scripture memory verse for the week.
The Lab Manual
The 395-page Lab Manual is a critical part of the course as it provides the huge variety of activities that make the course interesting. It’s more than a place for students to write up experiments. In addition to instructions for activities and experiments, it has suggested schedules listing what to do each day, space for taking notes as students read through each chapter of the Student Reader, lines for writing definitions for vocabulary words, questions and charts to complete that review the chapter’s content, boxes for student sketches, diagrams to color (such as details of both inner and outer parts of the eye), games to play, a list of required resources for the activities and experiments, questions to help students write their observations and conclusions, follow-up application questions, and research suggestions for further study.
Examples of some lab activities are making a model of a cell with food items, examining and drawing complete plants (including roots), dissecting an owl pellet, and taping together thumbs and pointer fingers and experimenting with different tasks to discover their level of difficulty without opposing thumbs.
While the activities use mostly household and kitchen items, some additional items you will probably need to buy from a science supply outlet are a good magnifying glass, a GloGerm Kit, an owl pellet with guidebook, a dissection kit, dried honeybees, and a butterfly garden. (Links to Home Science Tools are included for these items, although they should be available through some other sources.)
Students will frequently sketch the results of experiments and observations throughout this course, using the space provided. For example, students will observe dried honeybees with a magnifying glass and then sketch the compound eye, simple eye, antennae, and proboscis. In some cases, they can take pictures and paste them onto the pages instead.
Each lesson’s research activity can be adapted to suit students’ abilities. The first research assignment (found on page 6) says, “List 2 scientific laws and 2 scientific theories. Briefly explain what each one means.” Students can use a science encyclopedia, the internet or other resources for research, with parental guidance as needed. Another research assignment on page 77 says, “Choose 2-3 animals and look up which animals are their natural predators and which animals are their prey. Make a food web like the one in the preceding 'Apply It' section.” Parents might assist fourth graders through every step of the research assignments, and they might allow oral responses rather than written.
At the back of the Lab Manual are several more useful resources: a metric conversion chart (all measurements in the course are metric), a world map (used for identifying biomes in Lesson 8), extra note and sketching pages in various layouts, coloring pages, an answer key, and scripture memory cards. Reviews and two end-of-semester tests are also in the Lab Manual. Reviews are in the form of quizzes for odd-numbered lessons and crossword puzzles for even-numbered lessons.
Since this is a printable file, parents can give students pages to complete as needed, and students should accumulate these in a binder.
Parental Involvement
The course is relatively easy to use once you have the necessary supplies on hand. Seventh and eighth graders might be able to complete much of the coursework independently, while younger students or those with weak reading skills should work more closely with a parent. The vocabulary for some lessons is challenging to pronounce. For instance, among vocabulary terms for Lesson 4 are domain Eubacteria, prokaryotic, flagella, microbiomes, domain Archaebacteria, methanogen, halophile, and thermophile. Whatever the age of students, parents should do oral review of vocabulary and scripture memory verses with them. Parents will also need to supervise most of the experiments, evaluate student work, and oversee research assignments.
Parents are encouraged to adapt the lessons and activities to suit the needs of each child. For example, they might require research from an eighth grader but not a fourth grader. Older students might be required to write out lengthier lab observations and analyses than younger students. Especially with younger students, parents need to become familiar enough with the course to make such decisions.
Summary
The Mystery of Science: Biology is full of information that should intrigue children. The Lab Manual provides loads of activities to reinforce and expand learning. Parents looking for a creation-based biology course should find it an excellent option.
