The Ethel Walker School Curriculum Guide
SCIENCE COURSES ECOLOGY Required for Grade 6 This course is designed to introduce students to the natural world around them. Students begin the year by studying the role honeybees play in their ecosystem. Students visit the apiary on campus, build their own hive box to add to the apiary, and extract honey. Students also compete in National Geographic’s GeoChallenge, a project-based competition that challenges students to design an innovative solution to a unique environmental problem. For the remainder of the year, students explore field, forest and aquatic ecosystems inside and outside of the classroom, and the human impacts on these ecosystems.
HUMAN BIOLOGY Required for Grade 7 This course allows students to explore the structural organization of the human body from cells to organ systems. Students are introduced to the scientific method, cell theory, cell reproduction, genetics, and the human body systems. The emphasis of this course will focus on how to be healthy and how the body keeps itself healthy. Students learn how to work both collaboratively and individually. Laboratory work emphasizes making careful observations, learning correct measuring and data collection techniques, analyzing data, and discussing errors. Lab work, dissections, study skills, and current events will be integral parts of this course.
EARTH SCIENCE Required for Grade 8 This course introduces students to the many major topics of Earth Science, including weathering and erosion, plate tectonics, volcanoes, earthquakes and geologic history. In addition, students will explore the solar system, stellar evolution, galaxies, and the origin of the universe. Through numerous inquiry-based labs students will become proficient
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