Interdisciplinary Studies

This capstone seminar engages students in cross-curricular conversations that explore the complexities of academic and real-world topics and issues by analyzing divergent perspectives. Using an inquiry framework, students practice reading and analyzing articles, research studies, novels and philosophical texts; listen to and view speeches, broadcasts, memoirs and personal accounts; understand science experiments, and experience artistic, musical and cinematic works. Students learn to synthesize information from multiple sources, develop their own perspectives in written essays, and design and deliver oral, multi-media presentations, both individually and as part of a team. Ultimately, the course aims to equip students with the power to analyze and evaluate information with accuracy, meaning and precision in order to craft and communicate evidence-based arguments. This seminar is an interdisciplinary course combining history, the neuroscience of how our brains create and retain memories, and studying responses in the humanities exploring across time and space how societies around the world have recorded and explored the concept of memory. There may be nothing more important to human beings than our ability to enshrine experience and recall it. While philosophers and poets have elevated memory to an almost mystical level, psychologists and neuroscientists have struggled to demystify it.

Note: Open to 10^th, 11^th and 12^th graders
Prerequisites: Department consent

This capstone seminar engages students in cross-curricular conversations that explore the complexities of academic and real-world topics and issues by analyzing divergent perspectives. Using an inquiry framework, students practice reading and analyzing articles, research studies, novels and philosophical texts; listen to and view speeches, broadcasts, memoirs and personal accounts; understand science experiments, and experience artistic, musical and cinematic works. Students learn to synthesize information from multiple sources, develop their own perspectives in written essays, and design and deliver oral, multi-media presentations, both individually and as part of a team. Ultimately, the course aims to equip students with the power to analyze and evaluate information with accuracy, meaning and precision in order to craft and communicate evidence-based arguments. The course focuses on the complexities related to issues of inequality and explores the extent, causes and consequences of inequality. Students read about different forms of inequality, including political and economic, and how inequalities are often based on gender, race, religion and ethnicity. Students also examine different scales of inequality, such as interpersonal, communal, national and global. They read from a variety of texts in several disciplines including history, sociology, anthropology, political science, law and economics. These texts include divergent perspectives of how inequality impacts everyday lives in areas such as housing, the environment, education, diet, health care, transportation and government services. Finally, students analyze and evaluate the implications of and responses to inequality in our world today.

Note: Open to 10^th, 11^th and 12^th graders
Prerequisites: Department consent