The Science Department has added a new class for the 2024-2025 school year. This new class is Materials Science taught by Mrs. Weeks who also teaches Chemistry and Advanced Chemistry.
With 15 students in this class, Ms. Weeks hopes it catches on even more as the years go on and as students learn about the coursework.
“Materials science is studying the cutting edge science of solids. So, if you can touch it, you’re going to study it in this class,” Mrs. Weeks said.
Introducing new classes isn’t always an easy process. Rocky has a two year cycle for adding new classes. Each class has to be approved by a committee in the building. That committee consists of Mr. Bruell, Ms. Manzanares, and teachers from different departments. Then those classes that are approved by the building have to be approved by the Rocky admin team before being sent to the district for final approval.. Lastly, there has to be enough interest in the class by students. If not enough students sign up during registration, the class cannot be offered.
“To get Materials Science into Rocky, I needed to get a course description to the district. The course description needed to be passed through the district. As part of that process I had to write the final in advance before we could have the course, and then I had to write a separate set of documents so that it could be a CHASSA approved course, so that all of our athletes could take it and still earn credit in it. After it was approved by the district, that had to be approved by the building and then we had to have enough students to sign up to have the class,” Mrs. Weeks explained.
The appeal of this new science class is that it is very hands on. Students who may not have enjoyed some of the other science classes might find this one more what they’d enjoy.
“I love how hands-on it is. I love how we can see and apply every single concept that we’re talking about in the class. It’s a fun class. We earn science credits, and it’s really applicable to the rest of the world. Really good for engineers, really good for people who are going to go and solve problems in the real world with physical materials,” Mrs. Weeks said when asked about her favorite part of materials science.
Students can expect a lot of hands-on experiences. Part of what students will do for hands-on learning includes lab work. Weeks is also planning field trips and outside learning.
“We’re going to do a lot of labs. We’re going to have a lot of hands-on activities. We’re going to go outside. We’re going to break things. We’re going to break a lot of things. And we’re going to measure the way that we break them and find out about the world around us,” Mrs. Weeks said.
Materials Science is a college class offered at CSU, where Weeks took her class for their first field trip–to a CSU testing facility where they test designs for dams, canals, buildings and much more. They run tests to see what materials and structures work best to keep things intact and standing in earthquakes and floods.
Materials Science is a semester long class and students earn ten credits towards their science requirements for passing both quarters of the class.
Mrs.Weeks hopes for feedback so that she can continue to make a better class where students will enjoy and learn. She is also trying to make the class as fun as possible so students want to be there everyday.
“Materials science is Adventure PE for science classes,” Sadie Gudmestad said.
