Science

The Science Department believes that its most important responsibility is to introduce students to the knowledge, the questions, and the skills essential to making sense of the natural world. Through natural curiosity, creativity, and openness, students develop the scientific process skills they need to appreciate the world in which they live. They also develop a sense of ethical and moral responsibility borne by citizens to sustain the natural resources of the earth and an intellectual curiosity that stimulates life-long learning in life and earth science.

Learning to frame good questions is essential to thinking scientifically. Therefore, instruction is inquiry-based and student-centered. Students learn to evaluate, apply concepts, and become independent problem solvers. The focus is especially on scientific process skills such as observing, classifying, communicating, measuring, predicting, comparing, inferring, hypothesizing, relating, and applying scientific frameworks to the natural world.

The Science Curriculum is inspired by and aligns with the frameworks of the National Science Teachers Association.

Lower School

Early Childhood and Lower Elementary (PK-Grade 3): Lower School Science provides a learning environment in which students learn to appreciate the natural world by engaging their innate curiosity, creativity, and desire to explore their environment. This is accomplished through a variety of interactive, experiential activities including teacher instruction/discussion, exploratory and inquiry-based learning, hands-on experiments, cooperative learning, field trips and in-school special science programs, and nature walks.

Upper Elementary (Grades 4-5): In the Upper Elementary years, students continue to pose more complex questions, solve problems, and discover answers like scientists do. Students are introduced to fair scientific tests, data collection, and hypotheses. While they are initially introduced to the scientific process through teacher guidance, by the end of Grade 4 and beginning of Grade 5, students are directing their own learning and discovery. Because science is best taught experientially in natural, real-life situations, students participate in many field trips and demonstrations to connect concepts learned in the classroom to the world around them.

Middle School

The Middle School Science Department is committed to engaging all students in the study and practice of science. Thus, the science program offers varied opportunities for students with different learning styles to experience science through diverse laboratory experiments, critical thinking exercises and discussion, facilitation of independent learning, and hands-on experiences with a wide variety of scientific ideas and technologies. Students become familiar with and implement the scientific method.

Senior School

The Senior School Science Department helps students build a strong foundation in the basic sciences of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. The program provides students the opportunity to explore other sciences as well, including Environmental Science and Astronomy.

The laboratory-focused science classes foster cooperation among students, helping them to fully develop their individual and collective potentials. Every science course provides the opportunity for laboratory activities, where students make observations, perform established experiments, design their own experiments, collect and analyze data, make inferences, and present their findings to the teacher and classmates. The goal of the Science program is to prepare students for studying science at the college level and beyond.