The beginning of school has come with new changes besides the obvious, but a new class has opened up to sophomores – Environmental Systems. Environmental Systems had previously only been open to juniors and seniors at the regular and AP level as an additional science credit. Starting this year, sophomores were allowed to be in the AP level, so long as they had previously been in Pre-AP Biology and currently in Pre-AP Chemistry.

“Over the summer I went to a workshop and many of the schools taught Environmental Systems on the sophomore level,” teacher Christine Vick said. “One of the teachers had 40 percent sophomores. I thought to build the course we could allow sophomores.”

The three sophomores taking the course are in combined classes with juniors and seniors, and there are not larger classes or additional classes. Generally the students should be strong in math and science to successfully complete the many labs, and do well on the
AP test at the end of the year.

“The sophomores have more learning to catch up on,” Vick said. “They haven’t had the experiences that come with previous science courses as the juniors and seniors have.”

In the environmental systems class, students can experiment with many labs, as well as learn about the Earth’s systems and the interaction of humans with the environment. An overall hope for the class is to understand the environment’s condition and how to apply the learned condition to how they interact with the environment.

“I like the course,” sophomore Blien Mahari said. “The only problem is that they always call me by my brother’s name, but it’s fun.”