In our design for sophomore year, we are planning an arc of Intellect, Identity, Inspiration, and Innovation to line up with the four quarters of the academic year. This week’s wrap-up will be a preview of what we’re thinking of doing for Identity. These are rough ideas and we appreciate your patience and feedback as they develop. It’s straight from our white board to you. 

Our seminars include the following topics (tagged EN = English, M = Math, SC = Science, SS = Social Studies)

• Falling Up (SS): New Deal, response to failure, comparisons to today
• Who am I? What am I? (SC/EN): analyze periodic table for trends, read Disappearing Spoon
• Point to Point: Graphing Narratives (EN/M): end behavior, domain, range, creative writing, links to novels/stories, represent a time in history with a piecewise function
• Decision Making: Ethical Imperatives (SS/M): public opinion and polling data related to entering WWII, the Holocaust, and the atom bomb; using mathematical models to predict future opinions
• Superheroes (EN/SC): ethical archetypes, search for personal identity, scientific justification for superpowers, ethnographic spectrum/radiation
• Elements of War (SC/SS): impact of elements on war (carbon/hydrogen/etc), total war, chemicals in warfare, Geneva Protocol
• Different Approaches to History (SS/M): looking at macro/micro perspecrives in wartime (big data vs personal accounts), modeling/trending data
• Conservation vs. Chaos (SC/EN): equilibrium vs. entropy, chaos within Macbeth
• Science and Art as a Mirror of Optimism & Uncertainty (Common) – jazz/art/social change at the time, Sputnik, Nobel Prize winners
• Different Mirror: Race/Ethnicity in WWII (SS/EN/M): contributions to war by ethnic/social groups, incorporation of data of the time – unemployment rates, employment rates of women, availability of meat, etc.
• Running Hot n’ Cold (M/SC): 1st law of thermodynamics, energy transformations, Newton’s Law of Heating/Cooling
• Good vs. Evil (EN/SS): Macbeth, superheroes, allies vs. axis, Cold War, etc.

We are working on the modules and studios to support this. Thoughts? We would love to chat further.