KS3 photosynthesis

[duchesse]

Just had a mini argument with daughter 1 (13 and yr 8 in a selectively academic school) about how much she ought to be understanding about photosynthesis. She's revising for end of year internal exams, and knows all the bare facts- carbon+water etc..., but doesn't seem to understand how photosynthesis actually works. Son (14 and yr 10) says that they are only taught how it works in his year.

Is is standard to be taught only the barest facts about this at KS3, and to to have the gaps filled in two years later? It seems a little sterile to me to be taught these things in isolation, which the major facts omitted. If you are the kind of child who disengages from science by GCSE level, you may NEVER find out how it actually works, and always have the understanding of a 12 yr old.

I've now managed to upset daughter by asking her why she doesn't want to know what the process actually is, and essentially accusing her of a lack of intellectual curiosity. I got the evil eye from her, which may mean that I won't be allowed to test her any more... I'm no scientist, so I don't know how much understanding is possible at this age- would it be beyond her to understanding the actual chemical reaction. Science teachers out there?

iirc this sounds familiar - you're first introduced to photosynthesis (and several other processes like respiration and nitrogen fixation) as a 'black box' process ie you know what goes in and what comes out but not what happens in there.
The gaps do get filled in later, and even further biochemical details added at A level and beyond - I was an undergraduate before I found out exactly how bacteria fix nitrogen in the soil.

I think that must be fairly standard to do that. I remember learning about 'energy levels' at GCSE chemistry, and valencies etc, only to discover at A Level chemistry that they had lied to make it easier (well, they didn't use the word 'lie' but effectively that's what they did). So at GCSE we got a very watered down version of how compounds form, how bonds are made, before the A Level blew it all away. If I had done chemistry at uni (which I thankfully didn't, I abandoned all pretence of knowing anything about science and did music!) I would probably have discovered that actually it was completely different again!