Advanced Topics (AT) courses will replace the AP curriculum with top level, custom-designed courses that will integrate rich content with innovative problem solving, student research and real world application.
For example, the Advanced Topics in Biology course is a capstone course for the biology curriculum at Derryfield. This course is comparable to a first-year biology course at the college level. This course is open to all students who did high quality work in Biology and Chemistry (honors and non-honors), and have outstanding motivation and interest in biology and the field of science. Successful students in this class will be those who have developed responsibility for their own learning.
As part of the biotechnology component of AT Biology, students will isolate, sequence, and characterize a pivotal gene involved in cellular respiration from a plant species. In addition to lab techniques (DNA extraction, polymerase chain reaction, ligation, transformation, and restriction digestion), students will gain experience with bioinformatic analysis of their unique clones. The final results of this course may be publishable in the NCBI GenBank database.
In AT American Public History, as students develop conclusions about complex and often contentious issues in the American past, they will consider how the public remembers these issues and how they should be remembered in modes varying from museum exhibit designs to public speeches.
Advanced Topic courses include:
Advanced Topics Computer Science: Software Design with Java (year)
Advanced Topics English (Grade 11): Exploring Effective Civil Discourse in American Literature and Culture
Advanced Topics English (Grade 12): The Literature and History of Consumer Culture
Advanced Topics History (Grade 11): American Public History
Advanced Topics History (Grade 12): US Since 1960
Advanced Topics Latin: Survey of Roman Prose Authors
Advanced Topics Latin: Poetry in the Golden Age of Rome
Advanced Topics Mathematics: Calculus
Advanced Topics Mathematics: Investment Math
Advanced Topics Science: Biology (Grades 11−12)
Advanced Topics Science: Chemistry (Grades 11–12)
Advanced Topics Science: Physics (Grade 12)
Advanced Topics STEM: Research, Entrepreneurship and Design for X - Competition Track (F, W) (Grades 10-12)
Advanced Topics Language: Spanish Language, Literature, and Culture
Please see the Derryfield Upper School Curriculum Guide 2019-20 for more information about the courses.