What do you think of home science labs? The following is a link to a website where you can buy science lab kits for different college science courses such as biology, chemistry, and physics: www.athomescience.com Would the lab equipment used in a first year biology, chemistry, or physics course on a college campus be the same as the equipment found in a science lab kit that you can buy?
i have no idea but Mountain State University offers IS courses with labs for sciences. not sure how it works though?
Blinded me with... Yeah I did my on-line science bio course with labs and it was kinda fun to do the labs to da crib. Blending up cabbage for the PH experiment was the best.
Greetings, I know California National University - Advanced Studies; accredited by DETC. Their labs in Engineering, Sciences, and etc.. by using CD-ROM. All in the stimulation..and some of the school allows students to lend equitpments with a amount of money. Once these equitpments are returned, students get money back.
My layman's opinion (I'm a former biology major) is that home labs may work pretty well in a general-education science class. But they are probably going to be inadaquate for the kind of labs that prospective scientists and engineers take. I doubt it. On campus you will have expensive microscopes, laboratory balances, anatomical specimins and dangerous chemical reagants that you can't just pour down the sink. Part of the function of introductory labs is to introduce students to the common laboratory instruments and to start them building confidence and safe and effective technique. That's probably going to require hands-on attention by an instructor. It also helps to have classmates struggling with the same material. You can observe what they do and go with what works. Students often teach each other. Anyway, thats how my B&M labs struck me and I don't really see how that could be easily duplicated at home.
Agree… for basic course work, especially in undergraduate biology, they work fine, but there is a limit to what you can do with kitchen table kits. Most undergraduate lab work above the 300 level would require either specialized equipment or dangerous components that just aren’t suitable for home-study kits. After all, not everyone has a gas chromatograph in their basement… I do, but I’m a little strange that way. With chemistry labs, the problem is usually with disposal of organic components or heavy metals. Even in microscale kits, doing typical 300-400 level experiments generates a lot of stuff that you don’t want washed down the kitchen sink. Likewise, upper level biology courses will probably involve some low-level biohazards or will involve issues with storage/disposal of laboratory animals and tissues. For folks doing distance-based programs, I’ve found that transfer credits taken at a brick and mortar school are the best approach for higher level lab requirements. An alternative, if the school is flexible enough to accommodate such arrangements, is to work out a mentorship/internship arrangement with an appropriate facility where the student can do guided hands on learning and gain vital lab techniques that they may need to support their studies. Cheers, Tony Maranto
Re: Re: At home science labs I agree. As an example, Bemidji State University offers web courses called Physical Science for the Non-Scientist. For an extra $35 fee, the course includes a home lab kit. The key is that these courses are intended only for non-science majors. URL: http://distance.bemidjistate.edu/prog/CurOff.html#
