Costa plans for future honors earth science course in 2013

By Taylor St. Germain
Staff Writer

Starting in the 2013-14 school year, Mira Costa will offer an Honors earth science course to juniors and seniors interested in a rigorous geology course.

Students will be required to have taken CP biology, CP chemistry, and Algebra 2 as prerequisites for the course. The honors course will cover 17 units of information and go into further detail than CP earth science.

“I would have liked to have the opportunity to take Honors earth science because it gives students more options than the normal advanced classes,” senior Christian Rogers said.

Wendy Van Norden, a science teacher at Harvard Westlake School, came up with the idea for the new course. It was recently approved by the University of California system for college credit.

“I paired up with teachers and professors from UC’s, and we created an Honors earth science syllabus,” Van Norden said. “We then presented it to the University of California to see if they would accept it as an honors credit course as well as a D lab course, and they did.”

Studies conducted by Van Norden showed that most high achieving students take biology, chemistry, or physics courses throughout high school, leaving out geology completely.

“The earth science course will help students realize there are more sciences out there than the typical biology, chemistry and physics,” Costa CP earth science teacher Karl Kurz said. “Geology and earth science are involved more in everyday life.”

In the last 30 years, physics and biology classes have grown exponentially while geology’s enrollment has remained about the same. This lack of interest in earth science is translating to the college level, as fewer and fewer students over the last decades have taken measures in geology.

“After taking [CP] earth Science as a freshman, Honors earth science sounds like a beneficial class to take,” freshman Jon Sullivan said.

The Honors earth science class counts as a dual-credit course. Students who take it will receive boosts on their weighted GPA’s.

“A dual-credit course is a college level course taught in a high school, where students can get college credit,” Van Norden said.