The course map.
Eight units — four per semester — the labs that anchor them, and the two-day rhythm that runs every week of the year. This is the planner’s view — the whole course on one page.
Two days a week, and the work between them.
Every unit runs on the same rhythm: Concept Day → [student works at home] → Experiment Day → [student synthesizes at home] → next Concept Day. One day forces a choice between depth and breadth; two days allow both. More than two crowds out the at-home work where integration actually happens.
Concept Day
- Arrival & warm-up — reconnect with the prior session
- Pre-lecture discussion — surface what the at-home reading raised
- Direct instruction — micro-lectures, worked problems, demonstrations
- Problem set / model work — apply the concept, solo or in pairs
- Misconception sweep & wrap-up — correct common errors, preview the lab
Guide's role: Socratic and diagnostic. Student's role: active participation; pre-reading required.
Experiment Day
- Pre-lab briefing — the question, the procedure, the safety
- Safety check — goggles, gloves, field-site hazards; explicit, every time
- Setup — field kit & sample containers, partner assignment
- Execution — the lab itself; the guide circulates and coaches
- Debrief & lab notebook — completed before the student leaves
- Cleanup & waste disposal — to standard; non-negotiable
Guide's role: safety officer first, teacher second. Student's role: the lab notebook is THE artifact — predictions before results.
From energy flow to environmental policy.
The sequence is deliberate: each unit assumes the one before it. Click any unit to open its mastery rubric — the standard a student demonstrates against to advance.
| Unit | Big ideas | Anchor lab(s) | Integrates with |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 · Ecosystems & Energy Flow | Trophic levels, food webs, the 10% rule, primary productivity (GPP/NPP) | Quadrat & transect biodiversity survey | Darwin, Humboldt & the web of life (history, reading); biology; energy-pyramid & productivity math |
| 02 · Biodiversity & Populations | Population growth, carrying capacity, limiting factors, keystone & indicator species | Population-growth & carrying-capacity modeling | Malthus & the limits-to-growth debate (history, ethics, writing); statistics; logistic-growth math |
| 03 · Biogeochemical Cycles | Carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus & water cycles; nutrient flow & human disruption | Soil & water nutrient sampling (nitrate, phosphate) | The Haber–Bosch process & the nitrogen age (history, ethics); biology; cycle-flux math |
| 04 · Human Population & Resource Use | Demographic transition, resource consumption, ecological footprint, renewable vs. nonrenewable | Carbon-footprint & personal energy audit | The demographic transition & industrialization (history, economics); geography; per-capita & footprint math |
| 05 · Water Resources & Pollution | Watersheds, freshwater supply, point vs. nonpoint pollution, wastewater treatment | Water-quality testing (dissolved oxygen, nitrates, turbidity) | The Cuyahoga fire & the Clean Water Act (history, policy); biology; water-quality-index math |
| 06 · Air, Atmosphere & Climate Change | Atmospheric layers, the greenhouse effect, carbon forcing, ozone depletion | Air-quality & greenhouse-gas data analysis | Keeling, the ozone hole & the Montreal Protocol (history, policy, writing); physics; climate-trend & regression math |
| 07 · Land Use, Agriculture & Waste | Soil health, agriculture, deforestation, solid & hazardous waste, the three R's | Soil & land-use sampling (composition, permeability) | The Dust Bowl & the Green Revolution (history, geography); biology; land-area & yield math |
| 08 · Sustainability & Environmental Policy | Sustainable development, cost–benefit analysis, environmental law, the tragedy of the commons | Policy case-study debate with data | Carson to the EPA & the Paris Agreement (history, ethics, writing); economics; cost–benefit & risk math |
Every unit carries the core spokes — History, Reading, and Writing — anchored to the story in the integration guide. The column above names each unit’s distinctive spokes; geography and soft social studies run where they fit, and students pick from elective spokes (data, ethics, economics, technology, art). An applied-math lane runs through every unit too — math used in service of the science, never as a separate program.
Where mastery gets proven in person.
Three times across the year, the student steps up to a demonstration that cannot be faked, outsourced, or generated. These are the AI-proof core of the course — understanding, shown in real time, against a rubric, in front of a guide.
Field quadrat / transect defense
Run a biodiversity survey and defend the sampling design, the data, and the conclusions, out loud, under questions.
Timed data interpretation
Read an environmental dataset — a population curve, a pollutant record, a climate trend — and justify the reading under time pressure.
Oral lab-notebook defense
Walk a guide through your own notebook: the question, the method, the data, the anomalies, the interpretation.