» Science I, II And III- An Interdiciplinary Exploration Of SCIENCE
Science I, II and III- An interdiciplinary exploration of SCIENCE
Middle and Upper School Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM) Program
The CSS Middle School STEM Program has five primary components:
a) Science sequence: Science I, II (Living Environment) and III (Earth Science each year-long courses. These year long courses meet 6 times per week, including a double period lab.
b) Engineering sequence: Engineering I, II and III each year long courses
c) Math sequence: Math I, II (Pre-Algebra), III (Algebra) and Honors Geometry (may be taken concurrently with Math III- Algebra), each year long courses
d) STEM Electives courses - currently including a dozen, semester long courses meet the equivalent of 3 periods per week
e) the June Minisemester field expeditions courses - month-long thematic courses - "In the City", "Sustainability", and "Study Abroad". The stand alone courses meet ALL day, during hte month of June, are field intensive (i.e. have many fieldtrips), and also have 3 to 15 days of overnight components.
The STEM program is also supported by INQUIRY and ARGUMENT skills courses in our social studies and philosophy curriculum (see Philosophy curriculum for additional details).
Together, the science program at CSS represents the most ambitious and diverse set of science, math and technology course offerings of any school in the city. In any given year, a CSS lower school student may take as many as 5 courses that focus on science, math and engineering, 4 of which have significant laboratory or field research components.
The Science Program is interdisciplinary in nature and centers around big questions and theories in science. It has extensive experiential, hands-on, experimental and inquiry based components. Field trips and laboratory activities are common including trips to the American Museum of Natural History, the Bronx and Brooklyn Botanical gardens, and the Bronx Zoo. Field expeditions to the city's parks and nature reserves, the Catskills, Jamaica Bay Estuary, and even Puerto Rico provide students with unique opportunities to explore a wide variety of ecosystems.
The STEM Program's philosophical framework is as follows:
1) STEM content knowledge should focus on big ideas and questions - "depth is more important than breadth"
2) STEM is more than just a body of knowledge - it is, even more fundamentally, a way of seeing and thinking about the world
3) Students need to learn to ask good questions and the skill of inquiry
4) Scientific thinking is value ladden - these values include: intellectual courage; skepticism; confidence in the utility of logic, reason and evidence; intellectual humility; critical inquiry, and critical thinking
5) Experiencing science is the key to learning science - by interacting with real natural phenomena and using scientific instrumentation, practicing field and laboratory science activities and projects, students learn to do science
6) Math is both a unique language and a way of seeing the world. Our math program teaches students how to utilize arithmetic skills, estimation, graphing, geometric and algebraic equations to understand, model, and predict real world phenomena.
Middle School Core Program
As Robert Park wrote recently in the New York Times, "The greatest discoveries of science have always been those that forced us to rethink our beliefs about the universe and our place in it." The best scientists, using the full arsenal of tools at their disposal, including those of mathematics and language, look to not only see the world around them in new and interesting lens, but be able to share and discuss with their community of peers as well. At CSS-MSE science is taught authentically, that is, with an eye to the feeling and sense of discovery that has so often been dissected from the science textbooks that too many of us were brought up memorizing and reciting. Our sequence grounds our students in life and physical sciences in heavy conjunction with our unique and excellent engineering program and numerous science-related electives. Students take the challenging Regents exams in Living Environment and Earth Science in 7th and 8th grades, paving the path to AP Biology in 9th. We refuse to 'teach to the test', knowing that research is overwhelmingly on our side in showing that authentic knowledge is built through focusing on big questions and laboratory and field experiences.
Science I, II, III - is three year interdisciplinary sequence that uses Science PLUS by McFadden and Yager (Holt, Rinehart and Winston), the most highly rated middle school science textbook in the United States. The core science curriculum includes biology, earth science, chemistry, physics and environmental science. By the end of the sequence students should be able to successfully pass the High School Level Regents Living Environment and Earth Science examinations, and be able to enroll in 9th grade in advanced level Biology and Physics courses.
Science I A hands-on introduction to science process and research skills. Students utilize the habits of mind and the nature of science as they explore the life and physical sciences through hands-on learning activities, design and implementation of scientific investigations and analysis of secondary data sets. Considerable time will be spent in laboratory investigations and performing data analysis. Units of study include: bacteria and microbes, atomic theory, properties of matter, density, chemical and physical changes, energy conversions, thermal energy and heat transfer, cell structure and regeneration, sexual and asexual reproduction, and human body systems.
Science II - Living Environment-Regents - In the second half of the two year course, students will continue their path and heighten their skills inside the classroom and outside in the field through ideas as diverse as the energy pyramid and communities, evolution and genetics, solutions, plants and energy (as it appears in both sciences). This course may end with students taking the Regents Living Environment exam.
Science III: Earth Science-Regents: The field of Earth Science draws from the skills of many other sciences (especially chemistry and physics) as well as a set all its own. Students will learn this skill set, becoming proficient in the art of map-reading, rock and mineral identification and stratification as well as chemical structures and the physics of light and seismic waves in astronomy and seismology, respectively. Students will take a Regents Exam at the end of the year.
Middle School Electives
Genetics
How do you get your father’s brown eyes, your mother’s curly hair, your father’s interest in music, your mother’s ability in math? We may have HEARD of genes, but what are they, really, and how do our parents pass theirs to us? In the Genetics elective, we’ll learn how inheritance functions and how the environment plays its part. We’ll have DNA and protein models to work with, and we’ll perform sophisticated scientific experiments at the Harlem DNA lab. By the end of the semester, we’ll have a real handle on the “mystery” of Genetics, one of the newest areas of science.
Astronomy
Astronomy will be a course that uses observations in our classroom, partnerships with local observatories and organizations, and pictures from different satellites to gain knowledge of the Sun, our solar system, and the galaxies beyond. Particular attention will be paid to light and how astronomers use the spectrum to gain even deeper knowledge about our universe.
Bioethics
“Bioethics” is a very broad topic covering a diverse set of philosophical issues, but currently the “hot” issue is access to health care. Almost 50 million people in the United States have limited or no access to health care. The most debated political topic in the country right now is how we are going to rectify this problem. In this class, we will explore the many social, political, economic, and philosophical issues that surround this topic. Particular attention will be paid to issues of social justice.
Green Science
In this course we will explore actions we can take to leave our planet in better shape than we found it. Through community explorations, field lessons, global student exchanges and many more activities, we will explore how we can impact our families, school, neighborhood community and New York City… in other words, our world! We all play a part in improving the environment. In this course, we will see firsthand how making small changes in our everyday habits and the way that we interact with our community has a HUGE impact on our surroundings. EMPOWER yourself, take action to educate others—youth activists can and DO change the world!
