How do geography, history, and politics shape the culture and language of the modern Spanish-speaking world?
Throughout the year, students will progress from setting rules for participation and communication with each other to enacting those rules as they examine geographies, histories, current issues and primary documents from the Spanish speaking world. Students will progress in the fundamental skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening in both academic and everyday Spanish by exploring progressively more complex texts and topics. Topics include censorship, political perspectives, sustainability, social and cultural rules, and the role of gender in “ taboos”. As a culminating project for each unit, students will explain and support their understanding of each complicated issue through a project, bringing to bear both their content learning and their analysis and communication skills.
Texts: Paintings by Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Carmen Lomas Garza and Fernando Botero, Isabelle Allende, Lazarillo de Tormes, poetry from at least three eras in history, online media such as youtube and podcasts/recordings and blogs, current news and journal articles, historical texts, student-developed texts.
What forces shape the culture and language of the modern Mandarin speaking world? To what degree might different languages shape in their speakers different concepts of themselves and the world? What are the implications of such differences? How can learning to read, write and speak another language give me a new lens with which to see the world?
Students will learn basic greetings and introductions; communicate about themselves, their families, and leisure time; and discuss more complex issues such as sports and schooling. Students begin by learning Chinese pinyin--the romanized transcription system of standard Mandarin Chinese. Students will be introduced to the earliest Chinese writing system of pictographs, and they’ll study the evolution of these Chinese characters. Eventually students will learn how to write these Chinese characters, called radicles, and how to read simple sentences written in Chinese characters. Throughout, students strive for accurate pronunciation and tones.
A throughline of this course is that learning a new language goes far beyond communication. It reveals a different world through exposing a different way of thinking. It is a tool to develop open-mindedness and respect toward others, as well as seeing that, despite our many differences, we are deeply connected.
How do scientists conduct field work? How do scientists develop questions and design the study of a question? How do scientists make objective measurements of the world around them? When field research is not an option, how do scientists create experiments to pursue questions in a laboratory setting?
Students will become scientists in this course by examining how humans are affecting the environment, more specifically, the water, air, and neighborhoods around us--where we walk and play, in the water we drink, in the air we breathe. Students will examine the world as scientists: make observations in the field, form questions to pursue, propose solutions to problems we find, and use what we learned to make changes in our environment, in our neighborhoods, and in our lives.
Our study will center on ecology, environmental studies, biology, and climate change anchored in the local community and connected to the scientific world at large. Concepts like ecosystem mechanisms and interactions, population sampling techniques, biodiversity indexes like Simpson's or Shannon, systems thinking and flow analysis, habitat conditions and changes, natural cycles, pollution and biomagnification, greenhouse gas chemistry and pH, using computer models, and climate change data analysis will form the basis for studying issues that that impact our communities.
In presenting our investigations and possible actions, students will learn that science communication has conventions, language, and data that make it uniquely difficult to read but is a requirement for being a participant in the scientific community. Our students will learn to become scientific readers and writers as well as skilled technicians.
Texts: When Darwin Comes to Town; https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/CarbonCycle
- English Language and Literature
How can authors from different locations, identities and time periods deepen my understanding of the world? What are the issues that I want to illuminate? What techniques as an author can I use to make that more likely? How have social movements used writing to move their ideas forward? How does control of written language create or reinforce power?
To read well one needs to write — and to write well, one needs to read. Throughout this work, the texts, tasks, collaboration and research challenges increase in complexity until students are confident, fluent, and enthusiastic about reading & writing. Nonfiction units are paired with narrative units so students’ new knowledge can inform their interpretations of texts. For example, students read articles about groupthink in a nonfiction unit, then apply that concept to understanding human behavior in The Crucible and 1984 in literature. Reading units pair with writing units to deepen students’ skills and knowledge for producing, interpreting and critiquing texts. Students read personal narratives, such as Born a Crime and then write important stories from their own lives. To build collaboration skills as well as independent work skills, students engage in large discussions, debates, presentations.
Texts: The Crucible, 1984, You and Yours, The Underground Railroad, The Bluest Eye, Parable of the Sower, The Old Man and the Sea, The Hate U Give, Born a Crime, Of Mice and Men, Zeitoun, Othello, and more.
Why study History? If truth is difficult to prove in history, does it follow that all versions are equally acceptable? What values, goals, and ideals fueled the founding of the United States? In what ways has the U.S. met, or fallen short of securing, those values and ideals for all of its people?To what extent do we create our own histories? We will explore some of the big ideas mentioned below
- Indigenous people groups established a rich and complex set of societies and social structures in the North American continent well before European arrival.
- European colonization of the “New World” was fueled by religious, political, and social reasons and irrevocably changed the social and environmental conditions in North America.
- A multitude of factors including geography, economic development, social structures, and labor systems shaped the American colonies.
- The American Revolution emerged from growing political and economic tensions fueled by burgeoning Enlightenment-inspired democratic ideals/values in the colonies.
- America’s founding documents did not secure/protect the rights of all of the peoples living in the US.
- Texts: A History of US, primary and secondary resources
- Math
We will use mathematics to solve problems and model real-world processes. Is this because we create mathematics to mirror the world or because the world is intrinsically mathematical? What is the relationship between mathematics and human social interactions?
The goal of this course is to help students become inquirers, problem-solvers, thinkers, communicators, collaborators, and reflective learners. In this course students will engage in problem-solving in real-world contexts and learn mathematical skills and knowledge through investigation, interaction, presentation, and discussion with classmates.
The course is aimed to develop the conceptual understandings necessary for solving problems. Students are asked to present solutions and engage in discussions by comparing, finding similarities and differences, and generalizing ideas in order to develop logical thinking and deeper understandings of mathematical ideas. Students will also learn to take notes and reflect on their own learning.
The course is designed students to learn important topics from algebra, geometry, statistics, and discrete mathematics. Through the year they will learn: sets and Venn Diagrams; one and two variable statistics; linear equations, inequalities, and system of equations, functions, transformations, congruence, and solid geometry.
Texts/Resources: Illustrative Mathematics
- Arts
- Physical Education and Health
