NatureGlo's eScience Review

For myself, as a homeschooling mom, if life gets busy and academic subjects get short changed, it is usually math that suffers first. Despite having wonderful resources available, it is so easy for us to let slide the needed ongoing regular practice that is so important for maintaining the fundamental skills of math. So when we were offered access to NatureGlo's eScience curriculum of MathArt Online Class Bundle for reviewing it was an excellent opportunity. It provided added incentive to keep the math study going.

Math Connections with the Real World 6-week class

Math Art in Ancient Cultures 6-week class

Mathematics in the Arts and Sciences 6-week live or recorded class 

MathArt Patterns in Nature 6-week live or recorded class

For the review we focused on the course Math Connections with the Real World. Like the other courses available in the Bundle, it is laid out in lessons, for a six week class. Each class has between 5 and 9 lessons within. The lessons are divided into sections and consist of slide show power point lectures and videos from a variety of sources. There are downloadable and printable pages with questions encouraging interaction with the material presented in each lecture. Each class includes an online quiz at the end of the series of lessons. Each class also includes achievement awards for students to keep track of progress. A certificate of completion is also provided following the completion of the entire course.

A pyramid photo accompanys a
lesson achievement award.

MathArt Online includes a substantial amount of varied resources that reinforce the subject matter being presented. I went through the lessons of Math Connections with the Real World with my teen daughter. I was amazed to see all of the related video sources that Gloria Brooks has pulled together in one place to describe specific concepts. We were (o.k., I was) even delighted to view, as supplemental material, a 1957 Disney film featuring Donald Duck, explaining in quack speak, the magic of mathematics. There is so much information available to all of us online these days that finding the best and narrowing it down can be time consuming.

Connecting math and art.

I truly appreciate having someone else pull together this great variety of information into a lesson format. It reinforces the subject matter. Different videos or activities are useful for different people. Art activity suggestions aid in understanding the concepts. Including many videos from different sources also increases the chances of each student understanding the material. However, my daughter felt there were actually too many videos to view for completing each class. For her, for the presentation of certain concepts, less would have been more.

Gloria Brooks, the creator of NatureGlo's eScience, offers live online classes classes as well as the recorded lectures. The option to take a live class online has many benefits. And would certainly be a preference for some homeschooling families. For us, at this time in our homeschooling journey, adding a predetermined time to our schedule would have been difficult. The slide show lectures we viewed had previously been recorded from an online class. These recordings included the added interaction of students from the live class. The student voices increased the feeling of being in a class with others even though we were listening to a recording.


Initially getting started with the online course structure was a bit confusing but after following through a few times we had it down. After each activity, in each of the lessons, there is a mark complete button. It's a simple thing but because we thought we might return to review a section we didn't initially make use of the button. The general lesson on that was - follow directions - it made viewing through the sections much easier to navigate.

Overall NatureGlo's eScience courses are thorough, interactive and very well researched. We will continue to work through the series of classes and broaden our appreciation of and understanding of math connections in the real world. Thanks, Gloria for creating this comprehensive program!