Science

Seattle Academy Middle School science classes emphasize hands-on experiments, interactive modeling, and project-based learning as students journey through science topics. Our Middle School science program emphasizes students' deeper understanding and intuition about science rather than rote memorization.

• Science 6: In Science 6, we take an interdisciplinary, inquiry-driven approach to examine larger questions about the social and ethical implications of what we learn. In examining larger questions about the natural world, students practice role-playing while investigating a variety of topics through lab activities, media analysis, engineering design processes, seminar-style discussions, analytical writing, debates, civic action, and field-trip aligned activities. Students leave 6th grade science, understanding what it means to be a steward to their environment. In each unit, students address an anchoring event with essential questions. With a year-long curriculum that gives them a foundation in ecology, chemistry, policy, and current local environmental issues, 6th graders end their year with the young reader’s edition of The Omnivore's Dilemma and discussing the ethical implications of the food we eat. All of their practice in role-play, research, data collection, and discussion, comes to a close with a two-day debate that is judged by a panel of guest experts. 
• Science 7: During seventh grade, students will focus on Physical, Earth, and Space Sciences, while incorporating Design Engineering throughout the year. The year begins with an exploration of force and motion with a heavy focus on design engineering, followed by units on both Sound and Light. We then explore the laws of physics through the lens of Space Sciences, studying seasons, the moon, and the classification of objects in the solar system. Our year ends with a look at forces within Earth and how they shape the land and affect life. We learn about the geologic time scale, plate tectonics, and explore our local geology as it relates to earthquakes and volcanoes.  These various branches of science are investigated through hands-on discovery, experimentation, reading, writing, discussion, research, and presentations. Our focus is on building students’ skills in modeling, investigation and analysis, evidence-based explanation, problem-solving, and collaboration.  
• Science 8: In Science 8, students explore life from the Microscopic to the complexities of the Human Immune System. The course focuses on the life sciences in which we will examine life on the cellular level, Mendel’s genetics, evolution, and human organ systems. Students will define life and study its complexities while incorporating inquiry and project-based learning. Students will participate in hands-on labs, collaborative learning, performance-based assessments, and self-guided research. In each unit, students address an anchoring event with essential questions. With a year-long curriculum that gives them a foundation in biological science, 8th graders end their year with a student-directed investigation into a topic and a school-wide symposium in which students exchange their results and ideas to the community.

MIDDLE SCHOOL CURRICULUM GUIDE

At Seattle Academy, we offer four years of core science on which all students can build through dynamic elective courses. These include: 

• 9th Grade Environmental Science explores simple and then increasingly complex phenomena in the natural world as well as their fundamental causes and constraints.  Early work is grounded in fundamental science skills (eg. data collection, analysis, and graphing) and core concepts of Chemistry, Physics, and Biology as students examine patterns existing in the natural world prior to human intervention.  In the second half of the year, students consider how humans apply these same fundamentals to industrialized machinery that gives rise to global warming emissions, ultimately using the same concepts to study scaling impacts of global climate change and climate solutions. 
• 10th Grade Chemistry is the study of matter, energy, and change. We examine atomic particles and the processes through which they are rearranged to construct substances of interest, examine how a subatomic model of different elements can explain their behavior in bonding, and use mathematical models to make predictions about how much energy can be generated or consumed in a chemical reaction. The course incorporates experiential learning where students generate and execute laboratory protocols, analyze resulting data, and draw conclusions about fundamental questions in chemistry.  
• 11th Grade Biology, the final course in the required SAAS science foundation, is designed to give students a deep understanding of the scientific process and to prepare them to engage with science for the rest of their lives. Key to the course is the culminating spring term field ecology project, where students design and carry out independent investigations, write papers reporting and analyzing their results, and present research poster sessions. The skills taught in Biology are based on Science Department goals, and build toward the spring research project.
• 12th Grade Physics seeks to explain all of the natural world through the application of logic, experiment, and mathematics. The focus of the class is on experiential learning, using curiosity to drive explorations of the physical world.  The course covers the essentials of classical mechanics at the college level: motion, momentum, forces, energy, work, power, circular motion, rotation, oscillation, waves, optics, gravitation, and special relativity. In every area we will develop physical intuition and reasoning about phenomena, new mathematical tools to describe those phenomena, and experimental techniques for probing the boundaries of our understanding.

In addition to the science courses outlined above, we offer a wide variety of single trimester and year-long elective classes in the Upper School across diverse fields of study. These electives highlight the strengths and experience of our diverse faculty while also engaging students in subjects they find engaging and interesting. In some cases, student interest in a particular subject resulted in the creation of a new elective class in that area. Many of these classes are open to 9th-12th graders.