By Jocelyn Tolpin ’17, Staff Writer

The most recent Curriculum Committee meeting was a busy one. There were five proposals on the floor: changes in title to the Holocaust Studies class and IB Physics HL, an Advanced Drawing class, a 1960s-themed senior English elective, and a “STEMinar.”

The STEMinar course centers on activities coordinated by the STEM program, helping students to develop their science, technology, engineering, and math skills. During the year, the students will work on projects including 3D printing, data collection from weather balloons, robot design, gene analysis and engineering, and more.

The STEMinar course will follow the current structure of Theory of Knowledge, and thus will be composed of two parts, Seminar 1 and Seminar 2, which will meet twice a cycle over the course of two years. In the summer between Seminar 1 and Seminar 2, the students participate in a research project where they can do an internship, work in science labs, or design their own projects such as programming and codeing an IPhone app, or creating a Tesla Coil. The Academy would help motivated students to find these opportunities for summer research or personal design projects.

The proposal at the recent Curriculum Committee meeting was the modified version of the original proposal from December. Originally, the Seminar 1 was only open to juniors and the Seminar 2 was only open to seniors that had completed Seminar 1. The proposal was modified so that both juniors and seniors could take Seminar 1. Also, the initial proposal had a prerequisite of the STEM June term, which has since been abolished. In December, the committee was concerned that this course may be too much for the students to take on, but the program was “scaled back,” in the words of Dr. DiBianca, and was re-introduced.

The proposal for the STEMinar course during the recent Curriculum Committee was delivered and then debated upon until it was unanimously passed. The teachers and students are all excited for the newest addition to the curriculum. Ms. Celente, Science Department head and the presenter of the STEMinar course, said that the class is “wonderful and a great opportunity for juniors and seniors interested in science, math, and engineering.”

The STEMinar course is “a great option for students to further their knowledge in a new, interdisciplinary format,” said Mollie Wholforth ‘15. She’s very interested and excited about the new course, as are many underclassmen. Rohan Bendre ’17 said, “I’m excited to be able to take the STEMinar course. It seems like a great way to take math and science and apply it.” Dr. Dibianca, who led the curriculum meeting, thought that the STEMinar course is a “Very exciting opportunity, especially for our most quantitative kids.”

This new addition to NA’s curricula is an innovative way for students to continue to explore their interests and develop their passions in math and the sciences. Students and faculty agree that this course will become a valuable resource in the future, and they are eager to see this idea become a reality, starting next fall.