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] → Practice 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 the skill actually takes hold.
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.
Practice Day
- Pre-lab briefing — the question, the procedure, the safety
- Safety check — goggles, tied-back hair, a clear bench; explicit, every time
- Setup — lay out the tools, assign partners, check the notebook is ready
- The work — do the skill; the guide circulates and coaches
- Debrief & lab notebook — completed before the student leaves
- Cleanup — tools put back, bench wiped down; non-negotiable
Guide's role: safety officer first, teacher second. Student's role: the lab notebook is THE artifact — predictions before results.
From noticing to defending what you found.
The sequence is deliberate: each skill 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 · Observation & Asking Questions | Careful noticing, the difference between an observation and an inference, and turning a wondering into a testable, falsifiable question | Slow-looking at a bean seedling leaning toward light — record what you see, then ask a question you could actually test | Semmelweis & the handwashing data (history, reading) — the doctor who let careful records change his mind; writing |
| 02 · The Lab Notebook | Dated entries, honest raw data, sketches and tables, the rule of writing it down as it happens — not from memory | Keep a real-time notebook while timing how long an ice cube takes to melt on the bench | How scientists have kept records for centuries (history, writing); the notebook as the artifact you defend out loud |
| 03 · Measurement, Units & Significant Figures | Reading a ruler, balance, and graduated cylinder; units and conversions; how many digits you can honestly claim | Measure length, mass, and volume of everyday objects; record the graduated cylinder of water to the right precision | The story of the metric system and standard units (history, geography); applied math: units & rounding |
| 04 · Designing a Controlled Experiment | Variables and controls, changing one thing at a time, fair tests, and why a clear disproof is a real result | Design a fair test — e.g., does ramp height change how far a toy car travels? One variable changed, everything else held constant | Semmelweis's controlled comparison of two wards (history, reading); applied math: keeping conditions equal |
| 05 · Data Tables, Graphs & Patterns | Building clean data tables, choosing the right graph, labeling axes and units, and reading a pattern honestly | Graph how far a paper airplane flies across several trials, or fizz-tablet dissolve time versus water temperature | How a good graph changed minds (history, data); a chart doesn't speak for itself — interpretation is required |
| 06 · Uncertainty, Error & Honesty | Repeating trials, spread and averages, telling random from systematic error, and never hiding an inconvenient result | Time a pendulum's swing over many trials; report the spread, not just one number, and say how sure you are | Semmelweis ridiculed despite the data (history, ethics, writing); applied math: averages & range |
| 07 · Lab Safety & Technique | Working safely, careful handling, clean technique, and the habits that make results trustworthy and repeatable | Run a controlled "which paper towel absorbs more?" test with proper setup, tidy technique, and a clean bench | Why careful technique matters — the handwashing lesson revisited (history, health); safe, honest practice |
| 08 · Communicating & Defending Findings | Writing a clear conclusion tied to the data, drawing a justified claim, and defending it out loud under questions | Present and defend a result of your own — the question, the method, the data, the anomalies, the conclusion | Semmelweis vindicated only after his death by germ theory (history, writing); letting the data decide |
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.
Experiment-design defense
Design, run, and defend a controlled experiment of your own — from question to conclusion — out loud, under questions.
Timed data interpretation
Read and graph an unfamiliar dataset under time pressure, then draw a justified conclusion you can defend.
Oral lab-notebook defense
Walk a guide through your own notebook: the question, the method, the data, the anomalies, the interpretation.