Grade 10: Interdisciplinary Science II
Building on the students鈥� interdisciplinary connections, the Interdisciplinary Science II course leads students toward more autonomy and involvement in the scientific process. Throughout the year, students begin to build their scientific literacy through reading and discussing relevant short scientific essays, articles, and books with their peers. For the majority of the fall semester, student groups take part in faculty structured research projects like the Purple Sea Urchin project featured in the above video.
In another project, students explored how the neurocognitive processes of attention, memory, and learning may be affected by smartphone use. They used techniques from psychology and neuroscience to examine how the presence of a smartphone can impact selective attention, and made connections to consider how devices in classrooms can impact learning.
These structured projects serve as a bridge to the second semester, which is focused on a group project in a field of their own interest. Students work together with a faculty advisor to come up with a topic, relevant research methods, and hypotheses, culminating in a presentation of their work to their peers in a seminar format at the end of the year.
In the summer following 10th grade, students will participate in the Summer Research II course.