Page 6 - Priorities #10 1999-July

Advanced Placement Environmental Science
Holly Thompson, Academic Dean
With its 60 acres of rolling hills, the Priory is a natural lab for Environmental Science studies.
Academics
study the rain forest in Central America for the last twosummers. NumerousPriorystudentschoose environmental projects for community service. Last year’s sixth graders spearheaded an improved recycling program on campus.
AP Environmental Science will prepare students for the increasingly interdisciplinary emphasis at the university. Students planning to major in science need to specialize eventually, but benefit from first understanding how the parts fit together. Most universities, including major universities such as Duke, Stanford, Michigan, the University of California, and Harvard, now offer significant environmental studies programs. For our students headed for non-scientific careers in business, law, or international relations, an understanding of environmental issues will be very beneficial.
Wherever they are headed, studying Environmental Science allows students to explore science and issues immediately relevant to their own lives. Salmon once swam in creeks around the Priory. The Ravenswood Redevelopment Site, in an area where many Priory students do their community service, is a “brownfield” that can’t be developed until years and years of pollution are cleaned up. The waters of the South Bay are out of compliance with water quality standards for heavy metals because of copper and nickel pollution. Proposed new runways at SFO will dramatically alter the ecosystem of the Bay. And, of course, there is the plight of that endangered red-legged frog right here in the neighborhood. Byprovidingourstudentswiththe opportunity to understand better their local environment, we are also preparing them to be better citizens of the global community.
Advanced Placement Environmental Science, the College Board’s newest AP science offering and first interdisciplinary science offering, will be available to Woodside Priory students this fall.
Environmental Science is the study of the Earth and how human activities affect it for good and ill. The new AP course will give students hands-on
experience, as well as theoretical understanding of their larger world. Because the field is interdisciplinary, students will draw upon the knowledge they acquired in biology, chemistry and physics.
At the Priory, it will take its place with the three traditional AP science classes: Father Maurus’s legendary AP Bio, Paul Trudelle’s “explosive” chemistry lab (to be taught in the coming year by David Hall), and Dave Hafleigh’s innovative AP Physics. This is the full slate of College Board AP science.
With its 60 acres of rolling hills, the Priory is a natural lab for Environmental Science studies. We already have a bird sanctuary created by Nancy Newman’s 7th graders and a new greenhouse in the old calving barn. The community garden was added a few years ago and is tended by students, Theology teacher Tom Webb, and Science/Spanish teacher Hovey Clark. Hovey will be teaching the new AP Environmental Science course.
We are also close to other extraordinary field opportunities. Our students can study marine biology on the San Mateo County coast, environmental justice issues in East Palo Alto, and endangered species such as the California Red-Legged Frog, which is currently holding up a road construction project less than a mile from the Priory.
Faculty and student interest in environment is already evident in campus life. Nancy Newman, who first proposed the AP Environmental Science class, has woven an environmental strand into the Middle school science curriculum. Hovey Clark and Father Maurus have taken groups of Priory students to
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The community garden on campus is both a science lab and a service activity for students at all grade levels. Kieran Howard is one of several sixth graders who helped with a late harvest last fall.