The 8th grade science program at WIS went through many different layouts in the last four years. Two years ago, 8th grade science was two different semester-long courses, and before that, it was separated into biology, physics, and chem-STEM. Now, however, 8th grade students take ‘integrated science’ as one year-long class with one teacher, separated into different units.
The changes happened in an effort to make science more integrated, according to Ms Amy Tong, the Middle School science coordinator. She thinks that having the two-semester system was disjointed, and having science be one subject means that students get equal exposure to all three sciences before choosing which ones they want to take in Upper School. “They can see that science isn’t isolated,” she said. “They are all connected and you need some of each.”
Despite WIS being an IB school, our Middle School program is only loosely based on the MYP. This means that our school has more freedom in terms of how middle schoolers experience science. The various layouts have brought changes for teachers and students alike.
Upper School science teachers specialize in one subject, but when teaching 8th grade, they have to teach all subjects, not just their own. These changes mean that some teachers had to learn subjects that they don’t know much about, which many of them found enjoyable. “I had to learn biology,” Mr Steve March, one of the Upper School physics teachers, said. While this was a challenge, he adds that it is a good thing, since “science teachers should know all the subjects.”
Going into 9th grade is very different based on how a student experienced 8th grade. With the three-sciences system, students have had each subject individually prior to having to decide which ones to take in 9th grade. However, having integrated science in 8th grade means that students don’t have the experience of taking science the way it would be in 9th grade.
The science teachers think that it’s better to have one class with different units so that the students have equal amounts of each subject, since, as Ms Tong put it, “depending on what semester you had [biology/physics] you could miss a lot of biology.” However, not all the students agree. “I would have liked to take each subject separately,” 9th grader Marama Diaz-Asper said. She thinks it would have given her a better foundation for 9th grade science, and that having “a teacher who specializes in whatever subject I’m taking would’ve helped me [learn more about each subject].” She allows that the new system does make it easier to see how sciences are connected.
By Carmen Miller