COURSE:

Female Voice

ABOUT:

This course serves as an overview to the historical power of the female voice. The class moves from places of silence to places of song and legacy, studying women such as Queen Elizabeth I, Aung San Suu Kyi, Cleopatra, Artemisia Gentileschi, Maria Montessori, Susan B. Anthony, and Nellie Bly. Students learn about the places where women have forged a different path, the partnership of male leaders and community members to join them in this space, and the necessity of all voices at the table. Potential readings include works by Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf, the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, Flannery O’Connor, Gertrude Stein, and others. 

 

QUESTIONS WE ASK:

  • Where do we hear the stories of women in history, and where are they silenced?
  • Where have women been afforded influence?
  • Who are our grandmothers?

 

CREDITS:

English & History

"Artemisia Gentileschi, and Italian Baroque painter, portrayed women as capable, strong, rational beings. She gave them a voice by exposing stories of injustice from the Bible in her paintings, one being her painting Susan and Elders which depicts the story of Susanna from the book of Daniel."

- OLA Junior

 
 
 
 

COURSE:

Nature's Folklore

 

ABOUT:

Students in this course wrestle with the design of various ecosystems across the globe, learning about the harmony of each one and the stories they have birthed. Students use their knowledge of these ecosystems to analyze the folklore and mythology of the cultures that inhabited them, such as the Indus River Valley, Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Polynesia, and MesoAmerica. Alongside their readings, students work to create their own mythologies and folklore from the environment they live in, understanding the science and ecology of their own surroundings as influencing these stories. Students gain understanding of core Biology principles such as the nature of energy flow, the cell, the five kingdoms of life, and population dynamics.

 

READINGS:

  • Sand County Almanac
  • What are People For? 
  • The Silent Spring

 

CREDITS:

Science & English

Fluoride in Drinking Water

“This project informs people of the dangers of fluoridated water. There are many harmful effects to the human body from fluoride such as lower IQ, damage to the central nervous system, and hypothyroidism. Despite what dentists and fluoride companies are saying, fluoride is bad for the human body. Although there is a positive benefit to fluoride, prevention of tooth decay, there are not enough good benefits to outweigh the negative. This toxic chemical, which is a byproduct of phosphate fertilizer, is injected in our water supply. My experiment will show that individuals cannot taste the difference between fluoridated and non-fluoridated water. We are being poisoned, and we do not even know it!”

- OLA 8thGrader

“ What I stand for is what I stand on.”
— Wendell Berry

Unstable Ground

“Sinkholes are a natural phenomenon that occur when water seeps into soil and dissolves carbonate bedrock in karst terrain. Karst covers nearly 13% of the earth, including places like Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, Madagascar’s Rock Forest, and Florida’s “Sinkhole Alley”. The drilled holes in this globe represent common sinkhole locations around the world. Though they form gradually, sinkhole occurrences have recently increased due to human activities. Geologists accredit hydraulic fracking, wastewater injection, pipe leakages, and acid rain as the main culprits of recent sinkholes. The only way to reduce or maintain the number of sinkhole occurrences is if federal governments make stricter regulations on these human activities. Environmentalist and journalist Wendell Berry once said, “What I stand for is what I stand on.” Until humans make an effort to regulate their effect on the environment, the ground on which we stand will continue to be an unstable one. We should stand up for Earth so we do not fall into it.”

- OLA Junior

 
 

COURSE:

Mathematics: Quest for Wonder

ABOUT:

In Mathematics: Quest for Wonder, students travel through space and time to study the historical quest for wonder that propelled the great mathematicians. This quest will take us from the ancient hanging gardens of Babylon to the Duomo in Florence, from seeing how the Fibonacci sequence shows up in galaxies and pinecones, to the mind-bending questions of wormholes and time travel. This course pushed the boundaries of mathematics as we study such thinkers as Euclid, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Archimedes, Galileo, Fermat, Newton, Descartes, and Dyson to explore the ways in which geometry, algebra, trigonometry, and calculus are, quite literally, the language of the universe.

“Galileo once said that math is the language in which the book of universal philosophy is written. This was an idea that we discussed often in our class, and it shows itself consistently in how the universe works. It shows itself in the Golden Spiral of our galaxy, all the way down to the space between our strands of DNA.”

- OLA Senior

CREDITS:

Mathematics & History

Hypatia: First Female Mathematician

“Hypatia was born in Egypt in the 300s. Her father made sure that Hypatia would have the highest education. She grew up speaking the language of Greek math. Throughout her life she was an astronomer, inventor, philosopher, and the head of the school of Alexandria. She was the first, last, and only female to reach this feat. She was the first recorded female mathematician of that time.”

-OLA Sophomore