Science
 |
The Dundalk High School Science Department is committed to helping students understand the world around them through curiosity, exploration, and hands-on learning.
Through engaging and supportive classrooms, students can build scientific knowledge, develop critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, and connect science to their everyday lives and future careers.
|
Course Offerings:
Earth Systems:
 |
A problem-based, NGSS-aligned course that investigates Earth’s interconnected systems—the atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, and biosphere—and Earth’s place in the universe.
Students examine how small changes, including human impacts, in one system can lead to major consequences in others or sometimes no effect at all.
|
Living Systems:
 |
A problem- based course aligned with NGSS designed to investigate the relationships between organisms.
The study of life ranges from single molecules, through organisms and ecosystems, to the entire biosphere and its history that is all life on Earth.
Students will explore the interconnected and interacting components of life.
|
Integrated Physics and Chemistry:
 |
A problem-based, NGSS-aligned course that explores how physical and chemical processes shape systems and combines introductory concepts from both physics and chemistry.
Students study matter at the atomic and subatomic levels to understand how it influences larger structures, properties, and functions, emphasizing cause-and-effect mechanisms in all systems.
|
Zoology:
 |
This elective provides students with the opportunity to complete a phylogenetic survey of the animal kingdom from single vertebrates to complex vertebrate species |
Paramedical Biology:
 |
This elective provides students with the opportunity to use their knowledge of human anatomy and physiology to explain how body systems react to and are affected by injuries and medical emergencies.
Students learn how to gather information at the scene of a medical emergency and provide basic life support techniques.
|
Forensic Science:
 |
This elective emphasizes the integration of science in the legal process.
Students can learn the role of the forensic scientist and crime laboratory in a criminal investigation, as well as crime scene procedures including the simulation of a crime scene investigation and proper collection and analysis of evidence.
|
Horticulture:
 |
Horticulture is a plant science course that will focus on college and career readiness. This course will occur in the lab and in the greenhouse. Student engagement and hands-on/kinesthetic learning will be our primary way of learning. We will be engaging in service-learning projects to "Green Up" our school and support student well-being through nature exposure. Our studies will take root in plant biology, then grow into comprehension of greenhouse management, soil, propagation, agriculture, floriculture, pest management, and landscaping. |
AP Environmental Science:
 |
A course designed to be the equivalent of a one-semester, introductory college course in environmental science.
Topics in the course include earth systems and resources, the living world, population, land and water use, energy resources and consumption, pollution, and global change.
It is a rigorous science course that stresses scientific principles and analysis and that often includes a laboratory component.
|
AP Physics:
 |
This course is the equivalent of a first-semester college course in algebra-based physics, taught over a full year to enable students to develop a deep understanding of the physics content and to focus on applying their knowledge through inquiry labs.
The course is organized around eight big ideas that cover Newtonian mechanics (including rotational dynamics and angular momentum); work, energy, and power; mechanical waves and fluid dynamics.
|