The curriculum information we have included is adapted from Baltimore City Schools standard curriculum in order to meet our school’s interests and needs.
Environmental Science
Poly offers both AP Environmental Science taught by Mr. Reeser and Honors Environmental Science taught by Mr. Marinelli. In these courses, students study a variety of environmental issues that face the world today and the impact human interaction has on natural systems. Below are numerous examples of PowerPoints and handouts incorporated in the curriculum.
Date: September 2016 - Present Grade: 11, 12 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 100
Date: September 2016 - Present Grade: 11, 12 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 100
|
|
|
Honors Physics I
Annually in Mr. Howard's Honors Physics I classes at Poly, students participate in a three-week long Climate Change unit. Throughout this unit, students learn about light entering the Earth's atmosphere, fossil fuels, green house gas emissions, and solutions to climate change. They use their knowledge of physics to estimate important predictions like future global temperatures and change in ocean volume. They then research solutions to the climate crisis, and create a presentation regarding the history, work to be done, and impact of their solution which they present to their classmates.
Date: September 2016 - May 2019 Grade: 11 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 55
Date: September 2016 - May 2019 Grade: 11 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 55
Chemistry IB and II
Each year in Ms. Lindstrom's chemistry classes, students learn about acids and bases in the context of ocean acidification, learning about acid rain, the carbon buffer system, and physical and chemical weathering. Students learn this material through hands-on labs which assess the affect of carbon dioxide on pH and survey the various types of weathering around Poly's campus.
Date: September 2016 - Present Grade: 10-12 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 160
Date: September 2016 - Present Grade: 10-12 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 160
Principles of Engineering
In Poly's Principles of Engineering course taught by Mr. Timmons in the Project Lead the Way track, students learn about renewable, nonrenewable, and inexhaustible energy sources, fuel cells, and recycling materials.
Date: September 2016 - Present Grade: 10 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 50
Date: September 2016 - Present Grade: 10 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 50
Honors Biology II
In biology classes, students tour the Poly and neighboring school Western High School campus to evaluate the schoolyard. Ms. Mathew and Ms. Gapulan both teach this course. They complete the school yard report card. This was the kickoff to their Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience (MWEE) Unit.
Date: 2019-2020 School Year Grade: 12 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 180
Date: 2019-2020 School Year Grade: 12 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 180
These biology classes have also been discussing having access to clean water as a basic human right. Students then completed an engineering design challenge to create water filters that would turn muddy water clear.
These classes also tested the quality of the water they brought from home and collected from the Jones Falls behind the school.
Learning about water accessibility around the world, biology students watched the documentary “A World without Water” and created their own graphic organizers regarding the issues with having access to water.
Students also made posters raising awareness about saving the bay.
AP Spanish Language and Culture
As part of the AP Spanish Language and Culture curriculum taught by Ms. O'Neal, students complete an entire chapter of their textbook on sustainability in which they read articles and listen to an audio recording about sustainability and answer corresponding questions. They also learn about aquaponics through a PowerPoint, watching videos, answering questions about its advantages and disadvantages, and defining aquaponics related vocabulary in Spanish. Additionally, students learn about sustainable consumption and ecotourism.
Date: September 2016 - Present Grade: 10-12 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 20
Date: September 2016 - Present Grade: 10-12 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 20
Biology I
Students in Ms. Boose and Mr. Reeser's Biology I classes in April 2018 did a Food and Sustainability Unit. They watched Food Inc. with their students and then explored the impact of eating meat on the environment. Students then created their own posters about foods of interest.
Date: April 2018 Grade: 9 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 150
Date: April 2018 Grade: 9 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 150
Students in Biology I classes in April 2018 did a schoolyard report card evaluation of the the Poly campus. Students walked the school grounds and evaluated Poly as a habitat. Then students worked in groups to come up with recommendations that Poly could take to increase their schoolyard report card scores. They presented their recommendations to the class. The students then carried out a school yard clean up of the Poly campus.
Date: April 2018 Grade: 9 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 36-60
Date: April 2018 Grade: 9 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 36-60
Students in Ms. Mathew's Biology I classes in April 2019 carried out a Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience (MWEE) by carrying out a variety of activities. All sixty students were supposed to attend, but due to a change in the testing schedule, only 30 students were able to come out on the field trip excursions. Students spent the first half of the day canoeing and scooping trash from Middlebranch. We partnered with Kids in Kayaks from Baltimore City Recreation and Parks. The students were astounded to see all the plastic pollution and they picked up over 45 bags of trash. The other half of the day, we went to Living Classrooms Masonville Cove Environmental Education Center which is the nation's first Urban wildlife refuge partnership. Students ate lunch there and carried out a plankton microscopy lab, water quality tests, and a nature walk/photo scavenger hunt. They even got to see Captain Trashwheel.
Date: April 2019 Grade: 9 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 30
Date: April 2019 Grade: 9 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 30
Students in Ms. Mathew's Biology I classes in April 2019 carried out a Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience (MWEE) by carrying out a variety of activities. Upon returning from the field trip, students shared out their observations and recognized how bad plastic pollution is to the Bay. All students worked in teams to create, present and post "Sharktank" posters raising awareness about reducing plastic pollution at Poly. They were unable to carry out the plans since it was the end of the school year and time had run out to carry out the action project.
Date: May 2019 Grade: 9 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 60
Date: May 2019 Grade: 9 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 60
Students in Mr. Sanghvi and Ms. Mathew's Biology I classes carried out multiple hands on simulations to demonstrate various topics of the ninth grade Ecology Unit. The first row of pictures show the students participating in predator-prey simulations as part of the ecological relationships section. The second row is evidence of students analyzing food relationships and the transfer of matter and energy represented by dissecting owl pellet ecosystems. The third row has students participating in an adaptations survival of the fittest competition between birds with varying beaks attempting to grab different types of beans as a food source.
Date: May 2019 Grade: 9 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 150
Date: May 2019 Grade: 9 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 150
Ingenuity Biology I
Ms. Lange planted bay grasses with students. They were able to see the impact water quality plays in the bay grasses survival. Students were also able to apply knowledge gained when learning about the properties of water and then discuss the state of the Bay and how to protect the wildlife.
Date: February 2020 Grade: 9 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 120
Date: February 2020 Grade: 9 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 120
AP World History and Honors Modern World History
Students in world history classes learn about historical water and energy use, environmentalism, and human environmental impact from the Colombian Exchange, Industrial Revolution, and Green Revolution.
Date: September 2016 - Present Grade: 9 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 120
Date: September 2016 - Present Grade: 9 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 120
Marine Biology
In Marine Biology class at Poly, students learn about various marine ecosystems and the impact humans have on them. Documented below are the lesson plans for the annual lessons on coral reefs and macro-invertebrates.
Date: September 2016 - Present Grade: 11 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 30
Date: September 2016 - Present Grade: 11 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 30
AFJROTC
Poly AFJROTC cadets have participated in 39 community service events (420 total hours) related to the environment...both at Poly and within Baltimore City. "Environmental Engagement" is part of the the Poly Cadets in Action program.
Date: March 2017 - Present Grades:9-12 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 60
Date: March 2017 - Present Grades:9-12 Approx. Number of Students Involved Annually: 60
AP Research
Students from AP research choose an interest area that they are excited to research. This year we had one student choose an environmental issue. This picture is from October 2020. Students were getting feedback on their preliminary studies.