What if there was one online curriculum that covered hundreds of topics and experiments for teaching science? What if you could have an actual rocket scientist as your child’s teacher? Supercharged Science makes that possible with their e-Science Homeschool Science Curriculum.
What is Supercharged Science?
Supercharged Science is an e-Science Homeschool Science Curriculum for all grade levels, K-12. It is bursting with videos, hands-on experiments, and so much more in topics ranging from magnetism to microscopes. The creator of Supercharged Science, Aurora Lipper, developed this program to get kids excited about science. She has a strong desire to spark interest and curiosity of science in kids, and it is evident in her videos. The courses are organized by topic or grade level, and you are encouraged to jump right into whichever topic you wish to learn.
The lessons begin with an introductory video. From there, you can download and print the unit if you choose to. Each unit contains a shopping list for materials, vocabulary, readings, printables, and exercises.
How we used Supercharged Science
We decided to jump into the Life Science unit, and try the Microscope Lab. The videos started with anatomy of the microscope, how to use it, and techniques for how to properly draw what you see. Next, slide preparation techniques are thoroughly explained in the videos that follow. We experimented with various slides: dry mount, wet mount, staining, and heat fixes. The printables were nice to draw the specimens on, and Aurora was great at teaching how to properly label lab data. The exercise at the end of the unit is short answer/fill in the blank, and an answer key is provided.
I’m not even sure how I found it, but we also enjoyed a lesson about types of fingerprints, how to lift them, and viewed a few more informative videos about fingerprinting.
We also did some neat work with growing crystals in an egg shell, then on a sponge using only salt and vinegar. The egg geode did not have the wow factor I hoped for, but was fun to try all the same. I know we could have exercised our scientific method skills and changed a few variables for different results, but wanted to dive into one more topic. We ended our review period by doing an earthworm dissection. I already had a couple of worms that I had purchased earlier, and the video was extremely helpful. We were able to get much more out of our dissection than with the included guidebook that I already had.
What we thought of Supercharged Science
There are several things I like and things I did not like with the e-Science Homeschool Science Curriculum. I am somewhat still “old school”, and have not made the switch to doing many subjects online. Having a textbook and a lab notebook is what I prefer. Science is my absolute favorite subject to teach. I love experiments, and don’t mind the mess it sometimes entails. However, if I were to hand that role over, I would strongly consider Aurora with Supercharged Science. Her fun personality and passion for science really shines through in the videos we viewed. I also like that she teaches just science. It is difficult to find a science curriculum that the main focus is on science without integrating the publishers faith beliefs. I like the ability to insert those things where needed myself.
I also found the website difficult to navigate. Although it is organized, the sheer amount of options are overwhelming to me. I found myself in one unit and seeing another link available that led me down a rabbit trail of even more videos and experiments. Many may find it attractive that you can pick and choose, jump and skip, but I am more of a “start with lesson 1 and move forward” kind of gal. Too many choices confuse me, and make me feel like I’m missing something by skipping around. Fortunately, I was able to get a sneak peek of the website’s new look that will be coming out very soon. It did seem to be more user friendly with a cleaner look without compromising the great content.
Supercharged Science was used by several families on the Review Crew. Click below to see how they used it and what they had to say about e-Science Homeschool Science Curriculum.
