Chemistry (Dawn)
Continuing Students Only.
The second semester of chemistry focuses again on reactions, including oxidation
and reduction reactions, where students build electrochemical cells and study
their properties. Next students study solution chemistry with a focus on acids
and bases. Students learn to create solutions and perform titrations. The year
finishes with the study of gases. This class relies on the content of first
semester chemistry. This course, along with the first semester of chemistry, is
designed for students looking to build a more technical understanding of the
study of chemistry. Skill Areas Emphasized: Scientific Investigation and
Systems Thinking.
Horticulture (Lorin)
Horticulture is the study of the art, industry and science of plant
cultivation. The course will have three main sections. The first will be plant
basics: What is a plant? How do plants work? Next we will focus on plant
propagation methods: what are the different ways to grow new plants? Lastly, we
will investigate human uses of plants in medicine, food, ornamentation, dyes and
much more! We will visit various plant-based businesses to see how the course
material is applied. Skills Emphasized: Scientific Investigation and Systems
Thinking.
Biotechnology (Lorin)
This is a lab based
course which will explore the structure and function of DNA and its applications
in research and the marketplace. We will talk about genetic engineering and its
applications in our daily lives. We will also talk about the inevitable ethical
issues that surround this technology. Students will be expected to complete
reading assignments outside of class and be prepared to follow technical lab
procedures. Skills Emphasized: Systems Thinking and Scientific Investigation.
Physics (John)
Continuing Students Only.
This course will be an investigation of the fundamental rules that govern
the physical world around us. It will, as much as possible, be a
laboratory-based class, with students exploring and gaining an understanding
of the laws of physics by seeing them in action. The primary topic will be
mechanics. Concepts of electricity and magnetism, sound and light (waves),
heat and thermodynamics, etc. will be covered as time and student interest
permit. Skills Emphasized: Mathematical Communication, Mathematical Problem
Solving, Scientific Investigation and Systems Thinking.
Biochemistry: Chemistry of Food
(Dawn)
In this course, students will learn about the chemical structure of proteins,
carbohydrates and lipids, and the energy provided by these foods. Calorimetry
will be a lab technique of focus. Students will explore the impact of certain
foods and nutrients on the body as they explore solutions and acid/base
chemistry. Finally, the role of ingredients in cooking will be explored, as
students apply stoichiometric concepts to their understanding of the chemical
nature of ingredients. Integrated into the work will include the study of
solution chemistry, gases, chemical structures, and acid/base chemistry. This
is a one semester course designed to give the novice a unique scientific look
into our everyday world. This is a class has a strong focus on lab work.
Skills Emphasized: Scientific Investigation, Systems Thinking.
The Art of the Essay
(Carter)
Essay writers point out meaning
in things that others either couldn’t make sense of or would not have noticed.
This workshop is designed to allow you to find deep and original topics for
your writing; to recognize the options you have as a writer to adjust your
writing style; and produce prose that has sound sentence structure, clear
tone, and a recognizable, logical organization. The workshop will introduce
you to various essay forms as just one way to be aware of the different
choices available in the writing process. Time in class will be dedicated for
you to develop strategies for effectively evaluating and revising writing.
Once introduced to the types of topics and forms that essay writers use, we
will focus our efforts on developing essays for real audiences. Skills
Emphasized: Writing.
The Importance of Place (Clay)
In this multidisciplinary course we will use Henry David Thoreau as
inspiration and apply a place-based curriculum of Concord and Walden Pond to
places of importance in our own lives and a field site near our school. We
will examine place from multiple perspectives: historical, literary, poetic,
artistic, and ecological. Some of the texts for this course will include
The People of Concord by Paul Brooks, Walden and other essays by Henry David
Thoreau, Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by
Annie Dillard, and the poetry of Robert Frost. This course will require you
to be outside a fair bit so that we can make observations at our field
site. Please be aware that a science assessment is available even though
this is an Arts and Humanities course. Skills Emphasized: Scientific
Investigation, Writing, and Reading.
The History of the American West
(Clay)
The intention of this history-based course is for students to study in more
depth the forces that shaped and the on-going results of American westward
expansion. Three themes will be woven throughout the entirety of this
course: the interplay between individual endeavor and community
action/government support in the settling of the West, the ramifications of
western expansion on Native Americans and the environment, and the role the
landscape played in shaping the American character. Some of the texts for
this course will include “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own’: A New
History of the American West and The Organic Machine, both by Richard White,
and Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides. Although the learning opportunity
generated from the tentative Pacific Northwest Excursion will support the
curriculum of this course, it is in no way required that students go on the
trip in order to take this course. Skills emphasized: Listening, Research,
and Reading. Oral Presentation can also be available if arrangements are
made with the teacher.
The Supreme Court and its Impact (Anthony)
The United States Constitution contains only four sentences to describe the
powers given to the Supreme Court. Just to compare, the same document
contains 61 sentences describing the powers given to the Congress. Those
four
sentences, however, enabled the Supreme Court to make decisions impacting
the integration of public schools, how far a citizen can go in protesting
the government, the definition of torture, even the election of a
President. The nine judges who sit on the United States Supreme Court have
made and continue to make decisions that affect how people live and the
rights citizens possess. This class will explore some of those decisions
and their impact on American society. This class will have a law and
government focus, and we’ll rely mainly on the “opinions” (decisions)
written by the justices and how they interpreted the law. But we’ll also be
looking at a variety of historical eras in the 19th, 20th,
and 21st centuries in order to see how the decisions impacted
American life. Skills Emphasized: Research, Oral Presentation, Writing.
Hearing America (Anthony)
How can stories and oral histories help us to understand the past? This
question will guide us in Hearing America. Often times we
rely on textbooks, documentaries, and articles to inform us of an historical
event or era. While these are invaluable in many respects, stories from
individuals who lived through it can teach us in a unique way. This class
will spend part of the semester reading from famous observers and listeners
of Americans, Studs Terkel and Alexis de Tocqueville, in particular. We’ll
also take advantage of recorded oral histories and listen to the Federal
Writers Project from the Great Depression era, National Archives recordings,
and NPR’s recent StoryCorps project. This will all lead up to students
becoming oral historians and recording/producing a project based on
interviews centered on a particular historical era or current issue. (The
hope is to have high quality recording equipment, software, and studio
access in order to produce these projects.) Skills Emphasized: Listening,
Research, Artistic Expression.
Her-Story (Sue)
What changes
when you look at the world through the eyes of women instead of men? For
most of our history, we have captured our story from the male perspective.
From the times of the first European settlers right up until the Sexual
Revolution of the 1960s, history has mostly been just that – his-story. In
this course we will seek a different perspective on the story of our
country. We will study a selection of the literature written by women
across 400 years of the American experience. We will seek to understand
these individual women’s attitudes about their own American experience in
their own time, while also exploring the literature that they produced as
art worthy of analysis and appreciation. Our literary selections will
include the poetry of Ann Bradstreet, Phyllis Wheatley and Emily Dickenson,
and the novels and/or short stories of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Kate Chopin,
Willa Cather, Alice Walker, Jhumpa Lahiri and Gish Jen. This course will be
reading and writing rich . Skills Emphasized: Reading, Writing, Oral
Presentation.
From
Literature to Performance (Carter)
Crisis!
Calamity! It’s the end of the world! How do you feel? This is a
performance-based course in which we will be reading novels, short stories,
and poetry (perhaps some other stuff too) as inspiration for developing
original, actor-created performance. The theme for our readings will be
Crisis, Calamity, and The End of the World. We will practice analyzing
literature for thoughts and ideas, synthesizing those ideas into original
thought (thesis), and then improvising based on that thought and converting
raw improvisation material into carefully rehearsed, meaningful performance
pieces. Reading and Artistic Expression assessments will be offered.
Students should be ready to read a heavy load of literature and willing to
participate in performance games, exercises, and presentations on a daily
basis (yes, in front of your peers). Skills emphasized: Reading, Artistic
Expression.
Popular Culture and American
Society (Matt)
This course
will focus on the interdynamic between American society and popular culture.
We will start with an overview of American history since the Civil War, so
we have a context for the different aspects of popular culture that we will
be studying. We will then look at how sports has both reflected and affected
society, using periodical articles, excerpts from textbooks and books, and
the biographies of famous American athletes to explore this connection. In
the third part of the course, we will explore the role that toys and games
have played in America, focusing on the themes of gender, class and
race/ethnicity. The culmination of the course will be an individual research
project where you will select an aspect of popular culture (fashion,
television, movies, sports, etc.) of your choice, analyze it through the
course's focus questions, create a thesis that explains how your issue
exemplifies how your topic reflects and affects society, and use evidence
from your research to support your thesis. Assessments offered: Listening,
Reading, Research.
Watercolor (March)
In
this basic watercolor painting class, students will learn how to use the
watercolor medium as a way of creating realistic depictions of objects and
scenes, as well as representing their ideas in nonrepresentational images.
Watercolor has unique characteristics making it substantially different from
acrylic and oil paints. It is a translucent and less controllable medium.
Students will be expected to understand these differences and be able to
demonstrate this knowledge in their work. We will be studying elements of
good design and color theory, recreating the same image several times with
different color pallets, studying how these shifts affect the creation of
the work as well as the viewer. Skills Emphasized: Artistic Expression.
(Other skill areas will be considered if discussed with the instructor at
the beginning of the semester.)
Mixed Mediums (March)
What is an American image? What is an American icon, and how is it
depicted? These are the questions students will be asked as they recreate
and design new visual art using a variety of different mediums. The three
main mediums the class will be manipulating are paper (contraction, tissue,
newspaper, magazines, etc.), fabric, and acrylic paint. We will start by
working with the individual materials and then combine them into a final
project. Students will also be encouraged to incorporate materials that
aren’t listed above, allowing their work to be truly individual. With the
combining of materials, students will be exposed to the concepts of
abstraction, starting with a recognizable object or event and them
transitioning it into a less immediately recognizable image. The form of
landscape will be investigated and used as the primary starting point for
the initial exercises. Skills Emphasized: Artistic Expression. (Other
skill areas will be considered if discussed with the instructor at the
beginning of the semester.)
Division II/Division III Spanish: Nicaragua: El papel del
testigo/ Nicaragua: The role of the Witness (Ruth)
This semester students will investigate the roles we play in bearing
witness to the reality of others. Students will also act as witnesses as
they explore narratives, poetry, music and travel for 9 days in Nicaragua.
Students are not required to travel to Nicaragua in order to participate in
the course. Students who are in their final semester of Division II
Spanish, or who are in Division III Spanish may take this course. Projects
will be differentiated for students depending on if they are completing Div.
II requirements or creating a piece for their Graduation Portfolio. The
total cost of the trip will not exceed $1800.