This 7 week homeschool science class for teens is an excellent way to add a little learning to their physical education credit. My daughter was interested in this class not only because she want to be a biomedical engineer when she grows up, but also because she is a ballet dancer and wanted to learn more about keeping herself healthy as she continues demand more of her body.
I was compensated for my time, writing an honest opinion of this class.
College Prep Science online science classes by Greg Landry have really helped my middle school kids become independent science learners this year. (College Prep Science is a Christian science company.)
The Exercise and Sports Physiology class for 7th - 12th graders is a self-paced class. Once you have access, your students can work through the course at their own speed. My daughter completed one lesson per week.
Components of Greg Landry Homeschool Science Classes
Students have 3 jobs for each lesson.
- Watch the video
- Take notes
- Complete printable worksheets
There are no labs to complete for this course.
You can print the worksheets all at once and keep them in a notebook, or your student can just print what they need for each lesson as they get to it. The PDF includes black and white worksheets, but there are also colorful graphics teaching the information they need to know to complete the worksheets. I just let my daughter decide which graphics to print, and she hung the ones she wanted up on the wall in her little workplace cave.
Self-Paced online courses are great fit for our homeschool style
My 7th grade daughter felt the material was interesting and the pace of the class was great for her. She completed the course in two months. It would be a great course to add in the winter when your child is working on a physical education credit but may not be able to get outdoors for exercise as often due to weather conditions.
Although many parents looking for help teaching higher level classes to their teens look for live classes, I have found self-paced classes also work great. Excellent and experienced teachers are great at predicting questions students will have and answering them without being asked.
The flexibility allows to go through a course as quickly or slowly as we need, and also not stress if we are going to miss a day of school because of illness or other outside activities. This class provided my daughter all the direction she needed. I did not help her at all and only observed so that I could give an accurate review.
Why should your student take Exercise and Sports Physiology?
I think it is very useful general life-skill type knowledge, even though it falls under the category of science. I wish I had learned information this practical when I was taking high school physical education or science!
Because it is self-paced, you could also spread the content over a longer period of time, supplementing the lessons with hands-on activities, games, books, or videos covering the topic of the lesson. I think if you are creative and like unit studies, you could actually use this as a sort of backbone for a full year of middle school science, supplementing the lessons with all those fun extras I mentioned above.
My daughter’s scientific focus this year was medicine. She has had an amazing year piecing together resources from different places. This was a necessity, as medicine is not a topic of focus for any 7th grad curriculum that I could find. But there are many smaller bits that are amazing and fit well together to give her an engaging year of learning a topic that she is very interested in.
Whether your student is an athlete, interested in medicine, the human body, or you just want to ensure they have a basic understanding of exercise science as part of a physical education credit, this is a great class to add to their schedule.