What You're Actually Getting With This Curriculum
Exploring Creation With General Science 2nd Edition is Apologia's introductory science course, written by Dr. Jay L. Wile. It's designed for middle school level but can work for advanced upper-elementary or early high school depending on the student. The book covers earth science, biology, chemistry, and physics in roughly equal measure across four units. It's Bible-based, which means creationist framing runs through every chapter, and the teaching style is conversational, like someone explaining things out loud rather than writing a textbook. I ran through this curriculum with my own kids over a single academic year, doing it nearly every weekday morning. Here's what that actually looks like in practice. Each lesson is short—maybe two or three pages of reading. Then there are questions at the end, divided into review questions (multiple choice and short answer) and some experimentation suggestions. The experiments are optional in the sense that the book says you can skip them, but you shouldn't skip them if you want the course to actually land. The concepts stick way better when you've mixed the vinegar and baking soda yourself instead of just reading about what happens when you mix vinegar and baking soda. The pacing is one lesson per day, five days a week, with a test every nine lessons or so. That gives you roughly 36 lessons per unit and four units total, which lands you at about a full school year. Realistically, most families stretch this to somewhere between 30 and 40 weeks depending on how much time they spend on experiments or review days.
The parent guide is where things get interesting. It's sold separately, and I can't overstate how essential it is. Without the parent guide, you're guessing at answers to questions and trying to figure out which experiments are worth doing and which ones are just busy work. The parent guide has full answer keys, suggested experimental procedures with safety notes, and sometimes alternative experiments if your kid messes up the original one. My daughter knocked over a whole setup during the density experiment in Unit 3 and we ended up redoing it the next day using the parent guide's backup method. That kind of thing is built into how this curriculum is designed to be used.
What's Inside and How It Actually Teaches
Unit one is earth science—geology, the rock cycle, plate tectonics, fossils, and the water cycle. Unit two moves into biology with cells, tissues, organs, and basic plant and animal systems. Unit three covers chemistry basics: atoms, elements, the periodic table, bonding, and chemical reactions. Unit four is physics, touching on motion, force, energy, simple machines, and electricity. Dr. Wile writes in a Socratic-ish way. He'll pose a question, let you think about it, then walk through the answer step by step. The reading level sits around 6th to 8th grade, which means younger students will need you to read aloud with them or pause to explain vocabulary. Terms like "metamorphic," "covalent bond," and "kinetic energy" show up regularly. If your kid hasn't seen those words before, expect to slow down. One thing that catches people off guard: the Bible integration isn't tacked on at the end of each chapter. It's woven throughout. When the rock cycle comes up, there's a discussion of how a global flood could explain certain geological features. When evolution comes up, it's addressed directly and rejected based on the text's framework. If you're looking for a secular general science course, this isn't it. If you're fine with or actively want that perspective, it works well and your kids won't feel like they're being preached at because the theological points are brief and tied directly to the science content.
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Common Pitfalls People Run Into
The biggest issue I see families hit is underestimating how much time the experiments take. The book lists them as optional, but the concepts don't fully click without hands-on work. A lesson that reads in ten minutes can easily become forty-five minutes to an hour when you factor in setup, execution, cleanup, and the follow-up questions. My son once spent twenty minutes just trying to get a balloon to inflate properly for the gas law demonstration because the rubber was too stiff at room temperature. We warmed it under tap water and it worked fine the second time. Stuff like that eats into your schedule if you aren't expecting it. Another problem is the testing format. The review questions at the end of each lesson are straightforward recall and application. The unit tests in the parent guide are more involved. Some questions ask you to label diagrams or explain processes in your own words. If your kid struggles with written explanations, plan extra time for test days. I had to walk my daughter through how to structure a good short-answer response because she kept writing one-word answers like "rock" when the question asked her to describe how igneous rock forms. There's also the supplementary materials question. Apologia sells lab manuals and kit bundles, but you don't actually need them for most of the experiments. The lab manual just reprints the experiments in a worksheet format, which is nice for record-keeping but not strictly necessary. I printed the experiments as I went and clipped them into a folder. The kit bundle includes things like a microscope slide set and some chemicals, but a lot of what you need you already have around the house—vinegar, baking soda, food coloring, balloons, rubber bands, plastic bottles. The only real exception is the iodine solution for the starch test, and you can order that cheaply online if you don't want to make a trip to a science supply store.
Who This Actually Works For
This curriculum works best for families who want a structured, comprehensive science program that doesn't require them to be subject-matter experts. You don't need to know chemistry to teach this. The parent guide handles the heavy lifting. What you do need is time to read along with your kid, supervise experiments, and grade the occasional quiz. It's not a hands-off curriculum. If you're working full time and can't commit to daily engagement, you'll probably struggle to make it work without outsourcing the teaching part. It also works for kids who need a gentle introduction to multiple science disciplines before committing to individual subjects later. The breadth here is intentional. Some families use this as a sampler before diving into Apologia's specialized courses like Excellent Science or Physical Science. Others use it as a stand-alone general science requirement for high school transcript purposes. For transcript purposes, it typically counts as a one-credit lab science, which is standard for a full-year course. The main downside is that it's not particularly deep in any single area. If your kid gets fascinated by geology and wants to go further, this book won't satisfy that. It covers four subjects at a surface level, which is exactly what "general science" is supposed to do, but parents sometimes mistake breadth for depth. It's not a replacement for a dedicated geology or chemistry course later on. It's a foundation. If you treat it like one, it works fine. If you expect it to replace specialized study, you'll be disappointed.
Where to Get It
You can order the textbook directly from the Apologia website or through major homeschool retailers like Christianbook.com, Amazon, or Target. The parent guide is usually listed as a separate purchase. Some bundles include both the book and the parent guide, and those tend to be the better value if you're just starting out. The 2nd edition updated some of the language and added a few new experiments compared to the first edition, so make sure you're looking at the correct version if you're comparing prices across sellers. If you run into issues with the curriculum—missing answers, confusing experiments, pacing problems—there's an active Apologia discussion forum where Dr. Wile himself occasionally posts. It's not a guarantee of fast responses, but it's generally useful for troubleshooting specific lessons or finding alternatives to experiments you can't do at home.
