Maggie Lo ’23
Substantial changes are being made to the science curriculum and will be in place for the 2020-21 academic year. The changes are the result of a long period of study. In the Upper School, the core courses will remain Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, but Environmental Science will be added. Each of the core classes will be divided into two semesters except for Environmental Science, which will only be one semester. The courses will be Biology I, Biology II, Chemistry I, Chemistry II, Physics I, Physics II, and Environmental Science. AP classes will also be offered in each of these core subjects. Freshmen will have the choice of taking Biology I, Chemistry I, Physics I, or Environmental Science I the first semester. These introductory courses will not be leveled, meaning there will be no honors or regular designations.
The department analyzed peer schools’ curriculums, talked with university scientists, and did research into the NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) next-generation science standards. T. J. Locke, Head of School, shares, “I’m excited that our teachers are taking the future of science teaching very seriously, learning about it, making informed decisions, and making connections with other places…and I like kids to have more options as they go through the curriculum.” Chris Lo ‘21 endorses the change, saying, “I feel like it gives the students a ton of freedom, and enables students to have more control over what classes they take in a year. I would definitely have taken Physics earlier which would have allowed me to explore more advanced classes in Physics.”
Grace Limaye, Science Department Chair and Class of ’90, explained the reasoning behind the changed curriculum: “We think that this [curriculum change] will increase choice, increase flexibility, increase inclusivity, and not force students to think less of themselves coming into science.” She also says, “All the research says that kids get more motivated when they have a choice.” Limaye thinks environmental science should be a priority, too.
The current Upper School science curriculum has two main problems. Students felt locked into biology as freshmen, chemistry as sophomores, and physics as juniors. Limaye stated, “We felt like it was very limiting for our kids coming in. We also knew that we had kids that wanted to take APs sophomore year, and we had a number of electives declined because kids were forced to take APs later in their Upper School career.” The second problem was that the kids who were routed into regular biology rather than the honors classes felt discouraged from making the effort to advance into honors classes as upperclassmen.
Sabrina Burnetta ‘23 has concerns about the new science curriculum, saying, “It seems like it is going to be hard to learn these major courses in a single semester. It sounds like a very short amount of time to comprehend all of the information and understand it.”
To address this common complaint, Limaye responds, “We have created the syllabi, the course curricula, for each of those level one courses, so we know what topics we want to teach, what our guiding questions are going to be, our learning objectives, and what labs we’re going to do. We want those level ones to be packed full of the topics that form the foundations of the subjects and give kids a strong support base by which they could explore further topics.”
After taking these introductory courses, students can continue in those subjects. For example, if a student takes Chemistry I, they can then take Chemistry II or AP Chemistry. The level two of a course (i.e. Chemistry II) will be separated into regular and honors classes.
To graduate, students will still need to take three years of science in total, but will have more options for what courses they take. Limaye explains, “You do need to take Biology I, Chemistry I, and Physics I at some point over the three years, but you can double up, you can mix the order, and you can count APs towards one of those years of credit.” Locke adds, “I like that we’ll have the ability to add cool new courses over time.”
Jennifer Jones, an Upper School science teacher, says, “I’m so excited that this offers an opportunity for kids to have more options; you could take more AP classes should you want to.” Diane Radov, another Upper School science teacher, adds, “I think it gives students more flexibility. They can take, hopefully, more science courses and they can really find their passion more quickly as well.”