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Outdoor Adventure
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Chess
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Cribbage
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Chinese Painting
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Buisness and Personal Finance
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Magic the Gathering
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Spanish III
- Global Languages
Spanish III is a third-year Spanish course that follows the successful completion of Spanish II. The curriculum follows a standard high school level Spanish III course, and for this reason is taught entirely in Spanish. During the fall term, a thorough review of the advanced verb tenses learned in Spanish 2 help to set up the student for their active participation in class discussions. Students are evaluated on their ability to incorporate the comprehensive grammar learned during the previous year into meaningful conversations spanning a variety of sources. Listening and speaking exercises are a major part of the course, as is the written analysis of the selected reading. Authentic sources from around the Spanish-speaking world, including news articles, poetry and short stories, are employed to help students strengthen and internalize more deeply their knowledge of grammar and idiomatic structures in Spanish.
Algebra II
- Mathematics
Students must have fully completed Algebra I and Geometry and need a teacher recommendation to be placed in Algebra II. This is a rigorous and competitive course that contains some of our top math students. The focus is on polynomials, operations and simplifying rational expressions, working with the graphing calculator and other graphing devices to explore functions and transformations. Students engage with radians and degrees, connecting the unit circle and the graphs of periodic functions to one another. Working both independently and cooperatively, students seek to solve word problems and other challenging material.
Eighth Modern United States History
- History
In the eighth grade history program, Modern United States and World History, students build upon the skills introduced in the seventh grade to examine the twentieth century. During the eighth grade students investigate the domestic and international issues that have shaped the world, giving the class a perspective from which to better understand the present day U.S. and its place in the world. Supplementing the course are map studies, documentary videos, first-hand accounts and related current event articles. This course also emphasizes the development of research and writing techniques through note taking, tests, essays, and a term paper.
The year will be divided into three main sections of study. The first section is entitled Social Movements. In this unit we will look at how people are able to affect great changes in society. We will study the American Civil Rights Movement, and its intersection with other American struggles for justice. Students will be introduced to and explore the lives of a wide range of leaders of the Modern Civil Rights Movement. Through our investigations of de-colonization in India and Africa, we will also learn of social justice leaders on the international stage, such as Mohandas Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela, as well as the role of the many anonymous individuals who fought to make the world a more just place.
The second section of study is entitled War and Conflict. In many ways, war has been the defining characteristic of the 20th century, and we will spend the fall term analyzing many of these conflicts, starting with the Spanish-American War, moving through the two World Wars, and concluding with the Cold War. Rather than focusing solely on the United States, we will use these conflicts as a lens to view the larger world.
After taking the final exam, the year concludes with the eighth grade research paper. Students, choose the topic they wish to explore in greater depth, and by the end of the year, will have completed a high-quality, high school level paper.
Mandarin IA
- Global Languages
Mandarin IA is a basic introductory language course. The course begins with an introduction of the phonetic and writing systems of Mandarin. This includes consonants, vowels, tones, the logic used in the creation of Chinese characters, the movements of writing strokes, and the rules of stroke order. Students will be able to hold conversations on the following topics at the novice-low to novice-mid level: greeting, introduction, age, nationality, school, grade, family members, address, days of a week, current date, favorite food, and ordering in a restaurant. The vocabulary learned in the course is approximately 300 characters.