A High School Health Curriculum You Can Love

In high school, I took 4 years of science. My first year I took generic science, and I pretty much remember a debate about evolution, and my teacher showing us some kind of low grade explosive. Then I took chemistry, physics, astronomy, and psychology. Oh, and health, but that wasn’t considered science but was more of a strange don’t do drugs or other things class. I never really wanted to take anatomy because I didn’t want to have to dissect anything. I graduated from high school with a generic idea of nutrition and some idea of health. Basically, I knew you should eat vegetables and some fruit, and fats are BAD. So is salt, don’t add salt to your food. As an adult, I’ve started learning more about what foods are healthy and why I should eat different foods, and I wanted my kids to have a much better idea of health and nutrition than I do. That’s where the Apologia Health and Nutrition high school science curriculum comes into play. I’m thinking I’ve found one of our high school science lessons (more on that later in this post).

(This post is sponsored by Apologia Exploring Creation with Health and Nutrition high school science curriculum, there are affiliate links in here, oh and all opinions are my own)

 

Why does your kid need to learn health and nutrition?

I’m guessing if you’re homeschooling, you probably don’t really need me to answer this question, but just in case. Our nation is suffering an epidemic of poor health. We don’t exercise enough and we eat too much or the wrong things. We spend too many hours working or staring at screens and don’t spend time recharging mentally.

Apologia Health and Nutrition does just that. It works through your entire body and talks about how and why to maintain it. This is not a semester-long class on Health that tells you to not do drugs or have sex (really, that’s about all I remember). This is an in-depth year-long high school science class exploring all of your anatomy from head to toe and how to ensure the whole body works. This is what I wish I was taught in high school.

 

What you’ll get as you study this Health and Nutrition high school class

This is a loaded science class, you can easily classify this as an honors or college prep science class and it will fully prepare any student for college science. Every Apologia science book we’ve used has been thoroughly researched and is chock full of information (as an FYI, we used the Apologia Young Explorers Anatomy book several years ago and this takes the same material and digs deeper, if you want to read about that, check out our Anatomy page).

First, there are two books you need. There’s the textbook with 15 modules to study, everything from why you should study health all the way to reproduction (a chapter sure to induce nervous giggles from any teen). I loved that one of the later modules covers the importance of spiritual health, I’m looking forward to digging into that chapter.

Then the student notebook, you obviously need one of these per student. The student notebook has space for notes, projects to work on, and a review to complete.

In the front of their notebook, they have a place to keep their grades and a schedule to ensure they complete this course in 1 school year. The schedule is broken down into a (homeschool) traditional three days of science and is completed over 32 weeks. With this schedule, occasionally exams fall on day 1 of that week, so if your kids don’t like to start the week with a test, you’ll want to modify that element.

 

What makes this homeschool health class the best in my opinion

I have another high school health book sitting on my shelf. It’s good, but it’s not complete. That health book only has a textbook, and like many homeschool curriculums it tries to be “all things to all people,” so it has suggestions for little kids all the way up through high school and in the process, it does not completely serve any age.

This is a high school science curriculum. You cannot adapt this to younger kids, and there are going to be some freshman or 8th graders who are not ready for this class.

THAT IS OKAY. You are not failing as a high school Mom if your child is not ready for this health and nutrition class as a freshman, or even as a junior. It is a college prep curriculum, and that is great.

Here’s my struggle as a Mom, I love this curriculum, and I had the kids work on it for a little bit to try it out. They are not ready for it this year in 8th grade. I’m not sure if they’ll be ready for it as a freshman next year. I am currently planning to finish this curriculum as sophomores, and possibly waiting until they are juniors.

Where this is superior to the other curriculum I looked at and had intended to use until I got this one, it has the level of review you need for high school. It has the study guides high school students need to do well on a test. It has the projects and short essays you want your kids to learn how to do in high school. The picture up above is a fun project for the first module, I love character tests.

It has tests!

This may seem like a minor point, but speaking as someone who is currently writing all the tests for our history this year, having the tests ready made is a big deal.

In addition, just like all of the other Apologia curriculum I’ve used before (which yes was only the elementary curriculum) it has a course website with additional materials to read or watch. It’s not much to look at, but it doesn’t need to be and I’m rather glad they just left it a list of links with why it’s useful.

As I was preparing to write this review I noticed a page I missed before. Many Apologia courses have audiobooks and video classes you can purchase to complement their texts. This is perfect if you have a science-minded high schooler who is dyslexic or needs extra help with reading. Since the Health and Nutrition course is brand new (like I got one of the very first copies a little over a month ago), the additional materials are not out yet, but I’m betting they’ll be following soon. If you’re curious to see what that looks like check out the Chemistry curriculum.

This health curriculum lines up with my worldview

This is a big deal for me. I want my kids to understand they are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalms 139:14), and they aren’t just an accident. I also want them to understand the hows and whys of treating their body as a temple (1 Corinthians 6:19).

This is not a Bible study masquerading as a science book (I’ve seen those). This is a science book that supports and affirms the Christian worldview. When this book covers health, it is not just talking about mental and physical health, it covers spiritual health as well. I firmly believe you need to work to keep all three aspects of your life healthy.

Final call for Apologia Health and Nutrition

If you’re not sure the Health and Nutrition curriculum is for you, check out the Whole Health e-book, it’ll give you an idea of the feel of the book, and as always with Apologia, you can download samples of the book and student notebook to look through. There is a reason Apologia is the standard for Christian homeschool high school science. It consistently delivers a high-quality high school science curriculum.

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