Science Supervisors of High School District Overview Department for BOE

The Freehold Regional High School District is requiring the academic supervisors of each department to present an overview of their department to the Board of Education. At the Board meeting on Monday, Oct. 17 the Science Supervisors took the stage and discussed the goals and initiatives of the Science Department within the high school district.

The Science Supervisors that spoke were Kim Fox from Colts Neck High School, Marybeth Ruddy from Freehold Township and Freehold Borough high schools, Stacie Ferrara from Howell High School, Denise Scanga from and Tim O’Boyle from Marlboro High School.

“Today’s students need to be scientifically literate to be successful in our world,” Kim Fox said in an introduction to the presentation.

REQUIREMENTS

In the State of New Jersey, each high school student is required to take three lab science classes. This is defined as at least five credits in Biology or Life Science, and one additional lab science in Chemistry, Physics or Environmental Science must also be taken.

Next year, the freshmen class of 2012-2013 will be required to take a third year of lab science. The students will continue to take 15 credits of science, the state is just redefining those classes as lab credits, O’Boyle explained.

The New Jersey Core Content Curriculum standards were revised in 2009 and all of the current curricula have been aligned to the state’s new standards, Fox said.
New Jersey is also one of 20 states that are developing National Common Core Standards in science, and the anticipated completion date is December 2012, according to Fox.

“The Common Core is a national initiative developed to provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare our students for college and the workforce,” Ferrara said. “It provides us with an understanding of what students are expected to learn.”

A supplement to the Common Core is the “Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects” document, which addresses the expectations in science. Science teachers are expected to use their content expertise to help students read, write, speak, and listen in science class, rather than just in their English classes, Ferrara said.
 

DISTRICT

The district looks at the three basic components of science: Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. Each school offers a Principles of Lab class, a General Laboratory class and an Honors Laboratory Class for all three subjects. These distinctions allows the teachers to set rigor in order for each student to achieve success and continue forward in the traditional sciences.

“In the past it was very difficult to get a student to go - Biology, Chemistry, Physics - except for the top of the top,” O’Boyle said, “and now because we can set the rigor at an appropriate level we do get students that travel all the way through all three main areas of science.”

AP Biology, AP Chemistry and AP Physics B and AP Physics C are also offered in the Freehold Regional High School District. Last year 387 AP Science Exams were given in the district. AP Environmental Science will be adopted in the coming year.

There are also a great number of science elective classes that students can choose to take:

• Lab Earth Science (full year class)
• Lab Environmental Science (full year class)
• Lab Forensic Science (half year class)
• Lab Marine Science (half year class)
• Lab Zoology (half year class)

The New Jersey Biology Competency Test is required for all first year Biology students and it is taken in the second week of May. The Freehold Regional High School District was 11.9 points above the state average in both 2010 and 2011. The district is also above the average school within the District Factor Group (DFG)(or the districts within the same socio-economic class).

Inquiry-based education is the main priority within the district, because “students doing science is the way to learn science,” Ruddy said.

“Achieve 3000, the World of Biology”, was implemented within the district this year. “Achieve 3000” is a web-based program that is targeted to each students' individual lexile review levels, which includes content aligned to the district’s curriculum and also to the New Jersey Biology Core Content that was developed by New Jersey’s Department of Education, according to Ruddy.

Besides learning science in the classroom, the district also offers various science extracurricular activities:

• Health Careers
• Science League
• Science Club
• Animal Protection Group
• Computer Science Club
• Forensics Club
• Green Team
• H.O.P.E (Howell’s Organization for Protecting the Environment)
• Psychology Club
• Science National Honors Society
• Astronomy Club
• Technology Student Association