Created to meet the needs of diverse students, from academically advanced students to those considered “at level,” Science Matters is written to meet Singapore’s 2013 science syllabus. The Lower Secondary Science Matters emphasizes practical application of concepts and encourages critical thinking as it introduces the big ideas of science to 7th-9th grade students. At this level, the courses are designated A and B, with each course taking one year to complete. At the high school level, Science Matters offers a college preparatory, secular approach to the traditional high school courses Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. There are several components available for each course. For all levels of Science Matters, the Textbook and Workbook are required. Additional student resources and teacher supports are available, but these vary depending on the course.
The softcover Textbook is the heart of the program and helps students discover scientific knowledge through real-life context. Chapters are focused on themes or topics and include key ideas, review questions and real-life applications. The text is well written and full-color photos and diagrams help students understand the concepts.
The Workbook provides worksheets for each chapter in the text with a variety of question formats and difficulty levels. The Workbook Teacher Edition provides answers to Workbook pages only.
The Practical Book provides hands-on experiments or labs and discussion questions. Written for the classroom, some labs assume equipment that may not be available to homeschool families. Homeschool families and smaller schools with limited budgets can still use this book but will need to adapt or omit some of the labs. The course is completely doable without using this book. The Practical Teacher Edition includes the same pages as the student Practical Book with answers filled in.
The optional Structured Questions offers fill-in-the-blank, matching, short answer, and challenge questions for each text. Answers are provided at the back. They may be a helpful tool for further study and assessment. Biology and Physics Structured Questions guides correspond with the texts. Chemistry shows different chapter headings although the sequence of actual topics is the same.
Perfect Guides (9-12) were designed for students in Singapore taking the "O" level exams for these courses, so they function as a sort of a study guide. They contain study notes, learning objectives, common errors, glossaries, questions with solutions and explanations, and tests with both structured and multiple-choice questions. There are four review tests and two final exam trial tests (with answers in the back). Topics are the same as the corresponding textbook, but the order varies a bit between the Perfect Guide and the text.
The Teacher Planning Guide contains an overview of the curriculum and an outline of the resources and activities available. Lesson plans are offered for each chapter with a suggested number of periods for covering each one. Each lesson lists learning outcomes, prior expected knowledge, and concepts for those lessons. This is written for classroom use, so some adaptation might be necessary. Full solutions to the textbook questions are also included.
There are no test books specifically written for this series, so parents will need to choose alternative assessment options or use material from either the Perfect Guides or Structured Questions books. Please note, this is a secular publisher. Some courses teach topics that may not align with your family’s worldview. See individual courses for more information.
If you like the science courses for younger grades from this publisher like My Pals Are Here, this could be a good choice for your high school students. The information is clearly written and easy to understand, and all measure is metric.