This course is designed to emphasize physics and chemistry principles that will help the students in future science classes or vocational programs. These principles will be taught through the context of astronomy, meteorology, geology and oceanography. This course is intended to enhance the students’ science foundation before taking on more intense lab courses such as Physics, Chemistry or Anatomy or vocational programs.

Prerequisite: Completion of Biology and by teacher invitation only.

Dual Enrollment option with Grand Canyon University

This course will qualify a student to sit for the College Board Advanced Placement test or Dual enroll through Grand Canyon University for Biology 181/181Lab credit.  It is a vigorous course in introductory biology for majors. This course is a study of biological concepts emphasizing the interplay of structure and function, particularly at the molecular and cellular levels of organization. Cell components and their duties are investigated, as cell as the locations of cellular functions within the cell. The importance of the cell membrane is studied, particularly its roles in controlling movement of ions and molecules and in energy production. The effect of genetic information on the cell is followed through the pathway from DNA to RNA to protein.

Course content will also cover topic of evolution.

Prerequisite: Students must have complete a year of biology and a year of chemistry.

Scholars explore the form and function of the systems of the human body.  This course begins with a review of the atom and biochemistry, the course progresses from biomolecules, to cells, tissues, organs, and organ systems.  Emphasis is placed on learning the bones, muscles, and all of the major organs.  Systems reviewed include the skeletal, muscular, nervous, digestive, circulatory, respiratory, endocrine, and reproductive.    Scholars will also learn study techniques for success in college courses related to allied health and science. This course includes a unit on human reproduction and utilizes both artistic and real images of the human body.  Dissection is a significant part of the learning process and several dissections are performed during the course.

Dual Enrollment option with Rio Salado College

Scholars will examine and discuss the influence of science-oriented classical thoughts (Nichomachus, Pascal, Descartes, Bacon, Newton, Franklin, Jefferson) on the experimentation and scientific discovery process. A series of hands-on experiments will be conducted with increasing amounts of scholar autonomy. Through these experiments, scholars will (1) follow another scientist’s steps in logical order and analyze/improve/evaluate those steps and the results they produce; (2) create their own steps towards a given goal and analyze/improve/evaluate their own steps to see why the desired/predicted results were not achieved; (3) decide whether or not the actual results are more desirable than the desired/predicted ones; (4) design their own experiment and carry it out to produce a formal report of their discovery. During the experiments, scholars will use classic and contemporary technology for data collection and analysis. After the experiments, scholars will learn how to create a professional report of their experiments and findings.

Prerequisite: Seniors only with teacher approval. Completion of at least 2 of the 3 required science classes. A scholar that has not completed the third credit by the beginning of this class must be concurrently enrolled in their third science class.

This is an introduction to programming. Work will include conceptual programming in addition to writing a LOT of code in the python programming language. The Python language allows one to focus on the work of breaking down problems and designing solutions. Python is used both as an interpreted language as well as a compiled system. Modern programming is done within the context of having access to documentation, tutorials, and access to social networks of computer programmers around the world so the Internet is heavily used. BASH programming will also be touched upon in order to see the basic concepts of flow control, logic, data types, etc. The JAVA programming language will also be considered, and compared with python. JAVA will force a stronger object orientation of program design and will allow an expanded view of our conceptual problem solving. It is expected the scholars will learn problem solving skills and be able to adapt a solution to utilize whatever language is available, thus making a good starting point for further study and practice of computer programming.

Prerequisite: 825 computer class