New AP Environmental
Science Course Approved
A new full-year AP Environmental Science course has been approved for Huntington High School seniors. It will be offered during the 2011/12 school year and run two periods each day.
Huntington School Board members approved the new course at their public meeting on January 24. "The proposed course does not overlap with any other course," according to a memo from Kenneth A. Card, Jr., assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. Officials expect the course will draw students that would otherwise enroll in AP Physics. That would result in a reduction next year from the current two AP Physics sections to one.
"The goal of the AP Environmental Science course is to provide students with the scientific principles, concepts and methodologies required to understand the inter-relationships of the natural world, to identify and analyze environmental problems both natural and human-made, to evaluate the relative risks associated with these problems and to examine alternative solutions for resolving or preventing them," according to the district's Educational Development Committee, which vetted and approved the new course.
The course will include diverse laboratory and field investigation activities. "As examples, students can acquire skills in specific techniques and procedures (such as collecting and analyzing water samples), conduct a long-term study of some local system or environmental problem (such as the pollution of a nearby stream), analyze a real data set (such as mean global temperatures over the past 100 years) and visit a local public facility (such as a water treatment plant)," according to an EDC memo.
The course prerequisite is three Regents science courses or higher algebra. The estimated annual registration is pegged at 24.
"Environmental science is an interdisciplinary; it embraces a wide variety of topics from different areas of study," according too the EDC memo. "Yet there are several major unifying constructs or themes that cut across the many topics included in the study of environmental science."
Those themes include: Science is a process; Energy conversions underlie all ecological processes; The Earth itself is one inter-connected system; Humans alter natural systems; Environmental problems have a cultural and social context; Human survival depends on developing practices that will achieve sustainable systems.
Trustees approved the new course in a 7-0 vote.