Alexander Hamilton High School’s Science Department is excited to bring a love of science to all students! Our goal is to promote science proficiency and equip our students to interact with the world in a scientific way.
In order for students to be considered proficient in science, researchers have suggested that students should be able to understand important science concepts and be able to “do” science. This includes 4 requirements. Students should understand the nature of science and how scientific knowledge develops over time, be able to use scientific practices and to communicate in a scientific way, be able to generate and evaluate scientific explanations and arguments, and know current scientific explanations of the world and be able to use them to solve problems.
PLTW Biomedical Sciences
PLTW Biomedical Sciences currently includes 3 separate programs that are meant to be taken in order starting with Principles of Biomedical Sciences (PBS), then moving to Human Body Systems (HBS), and ending with Hamilton’s capstone class of Medical Interventions (MI). Each class offers a unique experience where the student encounters real-life issues/medical complications where they research the concept and perform a task (i.e. track an infection while it spreads across a college campus, diagnose diabetes using human samples, or building a model portraying the bones and muscles of a human.)
Students that are interested in the course need to have good study skills, need to be organized, and most importantly need to be able to work independently every dayin the classroom. Most concepts in the classes are based on biological concepts, so it is highly recommended that a student completes a Biology course and scores well in it before taking a PLTW biomedical sciences class. Each course is an entire year long and at the end of the year, each student will take an End of Course (EOC) assessment where college credit (up to 3 credits/test) is available to students who score well. Due to the EOC it is highly recommended that a student joins the class at the beginning of the year, any students joining the class late will miss valuable information that they will be required to know for the EOC.
These courses are not only excellent ways to prepare students for college, as the level of work and expectations are college level, but also to help students decide if a career in the sciences are right for them, as many of the experiments and research are the same types used by biomedical professionals.