The sixth grade course is designed to introduce students to several major scientific themes and their interrelatedness - scientific process, scale and structure, systems and interaction, and stability and change - as seen through an Earth Science lens. Students begin the year with a study of how scientists think and work before moving on to study the structure of the building blocks of matter: atoms and molecules. Beginning with a small scale foundation leads to a molecular understanding of water and its properties. Additionally, students study energy, its types and sources. Gradually, the course focus moves out to a larger scale studying Earth’s systems and structure with an emphasis on water and other resources. Environmental issues surrounding limited resources are considered. The course concludes with the study of weather and space, highlighting the interconnectedness of the cycles that continually change the Earth as well as its place in the larger scale of the Universe. Class activities are designed to encourage questioning, exploration, experimentation, analysis, creativity, and problem solving. Technology tools, effective communication, and peer collaboration are introduced and reinforced, and preliminary laboratory skills are developed.

The seventh grade course is designed to highlight three major scientific themes and their interrelatedness: natural mechanisms of change, natural cycles of renewal, and the dramatic interdependence of organisms on the Earth with their environment (including humans). Students begin the year with a review of the basic building block of life, the cell, and then move on to study cellular reproduction (mitosis and meiosis) and the mechanisms of heredity, which leads to the concept of change in organisms through an understanding of evolution. They connect this theme to the Earth by learning about geologic time and the theory of plate tectonics. The boys also study the oceans with an emphasis on its organisms and their dependence on each other and their environment. The course concludes with a focus on the human impact on both the Earth and its organisms through a study of several key current environmental issues/challenges. Class activities are designed to encourage thoughtful questioning, exploration, experimentation, analysis, creativity, and problem solving. The use of technology, effective communication, peer collaboration, and global awareness are interwoven within the course as laboratory skills are developed.

The eighth grade course is designed to highlight three major scientific themes and their interrelatedness: force and motion, energy, and scale and structure. Students begin the year with a study of force and motion to include Newton’s Laws, fluids, and work. This theme then blends into the study of energy and machines, as the boys learn how they are interconnected. Then, they move beyond this to study astronomy where scale takes on a new understanding. They conclude the course by connecting scale to structure in chemistry as the atom is revisited in more depth, going from the macro-scale to the micro-scale. Class activities are designed to encourage deeper questioning and exploration, experimentation, analysis, original thinking, and problem-solving. Wise use of technology, effective communication, and peer collaboration remain important as does the practice of strong laboratory skills. A particular emphasis is placed on STEM project work in this course.