For This Day
Volume 5 Issue 6
FOR THIS DAY Science at Coram Deo Academy
by Bridget Schober,
CDA Science Department Head
You may be surprised how many of our graduates go on to science related majors. Over the last four years 42% of all graduates pursued a STEM degree (science, technology, engineering, or math). Our goal at Coram Deo Academy, however, is not to churn out typical graduates. No matter their field of study or areas of expertise, we want to “train ethical servant-leaders and wise thinkers who will shape culture for the glory of God.” Some of our graduates will do that in the context of a STEM field and we want them to be just as equipped as our future pastors.
What We Do at Coram Deo Academy. Science at CDA doesn’t formally start until 5th grade which is a typically classical approach. Waiting until students are in logic school to start formal science begins when they are ready to assimilate information from many subjects. In 5th grade, students learn about famous scientists and their areas of study. Sixth graders learn geography, with earth science, physical geography, and the study of maps. In 7th grade, students are introduced to life science. 8th grade is physical science – a mix of scientific reasoning, experimental design, physics, and chemistry. 9th grade is biology, 10th is chemistry. 11th grade brings a choice of AP Environmental Science or AP Chemistry. In 12th grade,
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all students take physics and students can choose to take an additional Friday class to make physics into dual credit physics for college credit.
There are four principles that help us direct our efforts in the study of the sciences.
“Studying His creation with a servant’s heart is a way to honor God.”
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God created all there is. The created order all around us is wonderful and exists for His glory. As the Psalmist proclaims, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above declares His handiwork” (Psalm 19)
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God reveals Himself to us in His Word as well as in His creation. (Romans 1) Studying his creation with a servant’s heart is a way to honor God.
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Our goal is to prepare students to love the Lord with all their mind and to use their minds to do God’s work. It is our hope that through a focused study of the sciences, students will, as His Word commands, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30)
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Love your neighbor. God’s Word commands us repeatedly to love our neighbors (Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 19:19, Mark 12:31) Scientific research that benefits humanity is an act of love.
How can we achieve our goal? In the early years, we focus on the core of classical Christian education: educating the whole person. A good scientist must first have a good moral foundation. Our students’ families and the Grammar teachers are setting in place this moral foundation that we all depend on.
AP Chemistry students, Lauren Early and Maegan Pelletier, learning about the first law of thermodynamics.
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Children are curious, and we want to foster their curiosity as well as their observational skills. A sense of wonder and amazement at God’s creation goes a long way towards making a good scientist. For example, a Grammar School student that really looks at an insect for the first time and notices a detail that escaped them previously is going to turn into my high school student that enjoys a demonstration or lab. Even more importantly, this student who finds joy in scientific discovery will be proud of being able to explain the scientific principles behind it.
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The observational skills and attention to detail that we learn in the Grammar level help set us up for success. It matters when Grammar teachers hold students to high standards in their work. No one wants their surgeon or aircraft engineer to be slapdash in their work and those habits start early. Practically, math is important to future science instruction. Number sense and graphing skills (starting with basic number “Scientific research that lines) are critical for future success in science. At the Grammar level, nature study is a wonderful way for students to hone their benefits humanity is an observational skills. Learning the names of plants, trees, birds, act of love.” and animals, looking for animal tracks, watching a bird build a nest or tadpoles turn into frogs,—these are the activities that foster an appreciation for the wonder of creation.
As the Science Chair, I would like students to have an overarching view that we have a legitimate God-given capability to learn things about the world we live in, to communicate these to each other, and to use this knowledge to be better inhabitants and stewards of the earth. Life science, biology, and AP Environmental Science help students understand human health, the interconnectedness of nature and our role as stewards of creation. Physical science and physics study electricity, forces, and motion. (You should really be in class the day we talk about why you get thrown to the left when you make a right turn too fast! It’s not because of centrifugal force but rather because your body is going straight as Newton’s first law says it will.). Chemistry touches on many areas of study, such as understanding nutrition, weather, and chemical safety (Don’t use bleach and ammonia together!). We aren’t learning these things for their practicality, although that is a bonus. It is important to know that bleach and ammonia, when mixed together, create a toxic chlorine gas. However, the true reason we learn these things is to equip our students with a foundation so that wherever God takes them, they are prepared for His service whether in the STEM field or in another field of study.
I’d like to briefly address conflicts between faith and science. To do so, I’m going to borrow a bit from John Mays who wrote our chemistry text: “We do not k n o w a n d p ro b a b l y c a n n o t k n o w everything about the natural order so there will be gaps in our knowledge that appear to put science and faith into conflict. We know that we are prone to error, but we are assured that the claims from the realms of faith and science, when rightly interpreted, do not conflict.” Scripture itself tells us that creation declares the glory of God; it cannot work against its Creator.
I’ll give you an example: Before Copernicus, church doctrine held that the sun orbited the earth. This was not radical or old fashioned, it was the prevailing scientific opinion since Aristotle and Ptolemy. When Copernicus asserted that the earth orbited the sun in 1543, the Church initially had no reaction to his Coram Deo Academy
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Chemistry 10 students, Kayli Richard and Olivia Paolo, studying the different ways atoms form bonds and create compounds.
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discovery. In fact, even the scientists of the time did not initially accept Copernicus’ theory because it didn’t account for all of the observed data. Almost a hundred years later, partly in response to the upheaval of the Reformation, the Catholic church banned Copernicus’ book and used as support for their position Psalm 19:4-6 which reads, “Its rising is from one end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them.” According to their interpretation of the Scriptures, the sun was the heavenly body that moves. Eventually, both the Protestant and Catholic churches accepted the heliocentric view after more scientific confirmation and therefore came to interpret the same verse differently.
I tell this story not to show how interpretations change but to show how important it is that we are confident that God is the author of the universe and of the Bible and that there inherently can be no conflict. When I perceive an apparent conflict, I know that either scientific understanding will catch up or we will realize that we were putting a meaning on God’s word He didn’t intend. Ultimately, I know that God is the author of all and put my trust in Him.
“…we are assured that the claims from the realms of faith and science, when rightly interpreted, do not conflict.” John Mays
While I’m here, I’d like to take a few moments to discuss the differences among fact, theory and hypothesis as these terms can cause confusion between everyday usage and their scientific usage. Oftentimes in popular vernacular, theories and laws are treated as inarguable truth. Scientifically, however, this is not the case.
A fact is information that is supported by experimental or observational evidence or data. Facts change as new information becomes available.
A theory is an explanatory framework that allows us to make sense of the facts.
A hypothesis is a specific proposition which can be tested by experimentation.
For example, if your car doesn’t start, it wouldn’t make sense according to science to say that your theory is that the battery is dead. It would make sense to say your hypothesis is that the battery is dead.
Madeline Belknap, Mrs. Ligon and Mrs. Dwyer in the Biology Lab.
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It is also important to note that “theory” is not a derogatory word in science. “It’s just a theory” would never be uttered by a scientist. Theories come about after exhaustive experimental research and are the crowning glory of science. That said, every theory could be modified or even thrown out altogether based on new data. This is how science makes advancements and is not an indication that science is untrustworthy. You could say that Aristotle’s theory was that there were four elements, earth, air, water, and fire. It was a reasonable explanatory
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framework at the time given the information available. We have abandoned that theory because the facts no longer support it.
Theories should give rise to testable hypotheses. If the results of an experiment support the hypothesis (that came from the theory), then the theory is supported. If, after repeated experimentation, the hypothesis is not supported, then the theory needs to be expanded or modified to account for new facts. There is no such thing as a proven theory in science. We might have a theory that we are fully confident about, but new data is always possible that would cause a theory to be modified or abandoned.
Also, a theory doesn’t turn into a law once we are confident in it. Put simply, a law describes what happens while a theory explains how or why something happens We might say the Law of Universal Gravitation says that all objects are attracted to all other objects. All that is really just saying that we have experimented extensively and observed this consistently. It offers no explanation for how or why. The Theory of Relativity offers an explanation of how. But as Albert Einstein said, “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.” A good scientist is not troubled by this; it is a core part of how science works.
9th grade Biology student, Owen Gerth, with his model of a particular organelle mitochondria, ribosomes, or endoplasmic reticulum.
We have many graduates that go into medicine or engineering that need to be prepared for their college coursework, but we also have many students that will never take another science course in their lives. My hope is that all our graduates are scientifically literate so that they can intelligently engage with scientific aspects of current events. I would like them to be unafraid of science. I would like them to be confident that God is in charge of all and that science doesn’t have to be the enemy of faith.
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The Schober Family - Bridget, her husband, Rudy, daughters, Anneke (9th grade) and Greta (6th grade) with their dog, Sammy. The girls attend CDA Flower Mound Campus and Bridget teaches AP Chemistry, Physics and Dual-Credit Physics.
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Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 ________________
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