One of my favorite classes in High School was Marine Biology. I was so fascinated with the ocean life, and at one time wanted to become a Marine Biologist. So much is undiscovered in the Ocean yet that I find the new discoveries so very fascinating. My son also has a love of learning about animals, so when this review was offered I had to jump on it. For this review I received the Marine Biology 2nd Edition Advantage Set and a Marine Biology 2nd Edition Audio CD from Apologia Educational Ministries. This particular set is for High School. In the Advantage Set I received the Student Text Book, The Student Notebook, and the Test and Solutions Manual.

Exploring Creation with Marine Biology is absolutely amazing. It actually took me back in time when I was in High School. This was written by Sherri Sellgson and you can clearly see the excitement about the marine biology. It really draws you in as your reading. I didn’t find it as intense as when I took the course. I thought it was really broken down well. We started out by getting to know the Ocean. It is kind of in depth and to the point. Some of the things talked about in the first module are Properties of the Water, Light in Sea, Waves, Ocean Bottom and more. As you work through the modules there are questions for you to answer. You also have extra tidbits of information through out the book in the Thing About This section. There are hands on experiments as you work through the modules. The materials really weren’t that hard to find. We mostly had them on hand. Those we didn’t we had to purchase. Again they weren’t expensive. As you move through the book you get into learning about sea life and animals. You are learning the entire education on ecology.

The Student Notebook is set up really nicely. Each module has a section for note taking. As you read the book the On your Own Questions are also listed in the student notebook so you can write your answers right down in your notebook. There are a couple study guides in the module. You can define the vocabulary terms. We did that through the note taking. I like the fact that the vocabulary words are there and you can write the definition. So you answer the study guide questions from the book right in your Student Notebook. Then there is also a fill in the blank study guide. When you do experiments it also has pages in the back of the book for you to keep track of what you have done. Explain steps, observations, and things you have learned from the experiment. Everything you need is all in your notebook. There is also a daily schedule laid out for you that you can check off as you go.

The Audio CD is nicely done. The voice is done by Marissa Lewinart. The CD is a complete audio recording of the Marine Biology course. One thing to note is that is even though it is on cd, the recordings are done in mp3s, so you will need to be able to have a device that is MP3 compatible. We did listen to the CD in the car. This was great review for us to listen to it again and discuss things further. The tone of the CD is a conversational tone so it isn’t boring to listen to. It also reminded us that there are links we can go to for further study.

How We Used This: 

I used this with my son. We were in our summer mode so we used this three days per week. Now we are in our full time schedule so we will be working on this approximately 4 days per week. Since their is a daily schedule in the Student Notebook it helps us to keep track of where we are. That is what we have been following as we work through this. We had to slow down a little more as my son wanted to get into the animals right away. He wasn’t really intrigued with learning about the Ocean at first. I remember being the same way at his age. Now learning it again I am fascinated with the Ocean. Yes I sat down and worked on this with him. It took us a little longer to work through as there were parts he didn’t really understand. The nice thing though is that there are links that you can reference for further learning. We did spend sometime on those as well so he could understand. The experiments also were great visuals as we were learning. I love HANDS ON!!

I didn’t expect to go at a slower pace with my son. However, by doing so he actually understood it really well. There were times that he would perk up and say Oh I didn’t know that. So even though there were times he wasn’t crazy about what he was learning, he was interested with certain things. Before we started this I said to him, you may not be crazy about learning about the Ocean itself but once you get to the animals you will LOVE it. Again I think because I took that extra time and slowed down a little to help him understand and further study  it. He really has a new appreciation for the Ocean.

There are many things to like about this curriculum. One of my favorite things is that there are many experiments through the modules. I absolutely love that they give you a hands on experience. One of our favorite experiments so far was how there is a mountain formation from plate movement. To visually see that gives you an idea of what is happening with the plates and density.

I found the Student Notebook to be very helpful for us. It’s a lot different then the elementary but it’s perfect! I love the fact that you can take notes! That was something new for my son. He would point out what he thought was important and I would write it. He has a problem with writing so for it to be readable, he dictated it to me. Really everything you needs is handy in this note book. I like the fact that there is an extra study guide with fill in the blanks. It gives you more practice before a test. The only thing that I was different was that the pages for the experiments were in the same modules and not in the back of the book. To be able to answer the questions as you work through the book is handy too as everything is in one place.

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