Secular Science Curriculum Review: Microbiology
Big questions and lots of points of entry make this curriculum great for middle school science.
If you ask any homeschooler what the hardest subject to homeschool as kids get older is, we’re probably all going to mention science. For one thing, secular science curriculum is hard to find — I know I am not the only person who’s been surprised in a bad way by a curriculum that seemed fun until it suggested that evolution was “just” a theory. For another, good science curriculum has to cover a lot of bases: It needs to provide facts, preferably in a fun and engaging way; it needs to guide students through labs and activities that are genuinely homeschool-possible — most of us won’t have multi-station labs in our dining rooms; and it needs to build understanding through asking questions, reinforcing key concepts, and encouraging curiosity. There are a lot of programs that do some or all of this for elementary students, but by middle school, the options are few and far between. So I am happy to report that there’s a great new option for middle school science that does all of these things: Blair Lee’s Microbiology.
Microbiology is the study of all the tiny living things that make up the world around us: bacteria, viruses, microscopic fungi, protozoa, algae, and archaea — all the things we need a microscope to get a good look at. Kids who plan to study biology and chemistry in high school will benefit from this deep dive into the microscopic science of life. And it really is a deep dive: Each of the 12 chapters includes a variety of access points for students, including informational text to introduce big ideas, videos (created specifically for the course) to illustrate important concepts, labs that encourage students to get hands-on with scientific modeling, problem sets to practice concepts, and discussion and writing questions to push students to explain their understanding and develop their own ideas. Because there are so many ways to engage with the information, it’s easy to adjust lessons to meet your child wherever they are.
The best part about this curriculum is the author’s obvious love for her subject. She thinks microbiology is super-cool, and kids can’t help but be caught up in her enthusiasm. I’m a big fan of science curriculum that operates more like an incubator for inspiring big thinking than a checklist of things to memorize, so I especially appreciated the way each chapter is centered around exploring questions rather than just learning answers.
I think this curriculum hits the middle school science sweet spot: Microbiology steers kids toward big questions and interrogative science investigations while still providing lots of scaffolding and hands-on fun. It’s designed as a one-semester class, but you could easily stretch it to a full year by adding some books. (I’d start with A Planet of Viruses or I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life, both of which make great readalouds.) Though the microscope labs for this course are optional, I think it’s worth investing in a microscope to get the full experience — consider teaming up with other homeschoolers to purchase a microscope for your co-op or homeschool group if several of you are looking for science resources. Microbiology feels like a just-right stepping stone between elementary school introduction to biology and high school-level biology classes.
A great science class reminds students that science isn’t something that’s just a list of facts to memorize but an ongoing process of discovery we can all participate in. Science is never “finished” because we’re always discovering new things. Microbiology is a vivid, compelling reminder that everybody who studies science IS a scientist.
Blair is a friend of home/school/life and of this reviewer, but that relationship has not affected my opinion of Microbiology.
