Curriculum

Atheneum naturally makes use of only the best texts, texts that unabashedly pursue the truth and seek to express it, pose questions that compel interest and wonder, articulate common but hidden assumptions or biases, and synthesize ideas and facts that on the surface seem unconnected.

Middle School

LANGUAGE ARTS/SOCIAL STUDIES SEMINARS

United States History. Texts include selections from: Declaration of Independence; U.S. Constitution; Federalist Papers; Presidential Inaugural Addresses; The Red Pony; Thoreau, “Walking Westward”; Lincoln/Douglas debates; Dred Scott Decision.

Alaska History. Texts include: Steller, Journal of a Voyage with Bering; Alaska Native tales and myths; John Veniaminov, “Notes on the Aleuts”; Jack London “To Build a Fire”; John Muir “Village of the Dead”; Alaska State Constitution.

World History--Origins of Civilization. Texts include: Code of Hammurabi; Lucretius, De Rerum Natura; Gilgamesh; Pre-Classical Civilization handout; Confucius, The Great Digest. Second Semester: World History--Greek & Roman Civilizations. Texts include: Herodotus, History; Thucydides, History of the Pelopennesian War; Marcus Aurelius, Meditations; Seneca, Letters.

MATH SEMINARS

Geometry: Definitions, axioms and proofs in linear and plane geometry; principles of trigonometry. Texts include: Euclid’s Elements; Abbott, Flatland; Lobachevski, Theory of Parallels; Eratosthenes, “Measuring the earth.”

SCIENCE SEMINARS

FIRST YEAR: Matter, Motion, and Change. Students investigate science as a way of reasoning that produces certain knowledge about the natural world. They study the methods of observation, experimentation, and mathematics as ways of exploring natural properties, causes, forces, and motion. Biology: Dissection, observation of wildlife, anatomy, cellular theory Texts: William Harvey, On the Motion of the Heart and Blood; Fabre, Wonderbook of Plant Life Physics: Laws of motion, buoyancy and pressure, laws of change Texts: Galileo, Two New Sciences; Archimedes, Equilibrium of Planes; Presocratics, “Fragments” Chemistry: Periodic table, fundamental laws of chemical reactions Texts: Pascal, “On the Weight of Air”; Lavoisier, Elements of Chemistry

SECOND YEAR: Mathematics in Science. Second Year focuses on the power of mathematics in scientific inquiry. The students will examine how math defines what science states about the natural world, both animate and inanimate objects. Biology: Natural selection, entomology, field and microscopic observations Texts include: Darwin, Origins of the Species; Fabre, from Souvenirs Entologymique; Thomas, “On Embryology”; Hooke, “Texture of Cork”; Boeke, “Cosmic View” Physics: Laws of motion and collision, Momentum, Force Texts include: Huygens, “Colliding Bodies”; Newton, from Principia Chemistry: Freezing and burning, oxidation Texts include: selected experiments from Black, Rumford, and Lavoisier.

High School

MATH AND SCIENCE SEMINARS

Biology. Fabre, Life of a Fly, Life of a Spider; Darwin, Origin of Species; Watson and Crick, The Double Helix; Schrodinger, “What is Life?”; Aristotle, Generation of Animals

Geometry I. Euclid, Elements

Chemistry. Lavoisier, Elements of Chemistry; Faraday, Chemical History of a Candle; selections from Avagadro, Dalton

Geometry II. Modern Developments; later books of Euclid; non- Euclidean and analytic geometry

Astronomy. Mathematical and Scientific: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, Hawkings; telescope construction

Anatomy and Physiology. Gray, Anatomy; DaVinci, Mendel, Morgan, Brown (textbook)

Advanced Math. Einstein’s Special and General Theory of Relativity, Chaos Theory and Fractal Geometry

Psychology. Scientific Principles: James, Freud, Jung

Advanced Physics. Indeterminacy: Heisenberg, Eddington, Feynmann

LANGUAGE ARTS/SOCIAL STUDIES SEMINARS

FRESHMAN YEAR

World History. Medieval Texts include selections from: Augustine, Confessions; Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy; Tolkien, tr., Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae; Dante, Divine Comedy; Chaucer, Canterbury Tales; DaVinci, Notebooks. Second semester includes Renaissance Texts include selections from: Machiavelli, The Prince; Pico, Dignity of Man; Hobbes, Leviathan; Petrarch, Canzoniere; Shakespeare, Histories and Tragedies

SOPHOMORE YEAR

The Moderns. U.S. History and Literature Locke, Civil Government; Tocqueville, Democracy in America; Lewis and Clark’s Journals; Twain, Huckleberry Finn; Hannah Arendt, The Life of The Mind; Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron; Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse and The Waves

JUNIOR YEAR

World Religions and Ethics. Genesis; Exodus; The Gospels; Maimonides; Augustine, Confessions; Anselm; Aquinas; Kant; Martin Buber; Abraham Joshua Heschel; Isaac Bashevis Singer, Shosha; Simone Weil, Waiting For God; Upanishads; Doris Lessing, Selected Poetry; Rousseau, Emile; Herman Hesse, Narcissus and Goldsmund; Stendahl, The Red and The Black

SENIOR YEAR

Origins of Government & Economics, Contemporary Literature Becker, Economic Approach to Human Behavior; Smith, Wealth of Nations; Marx, Das Capital; Ricardo, Principles of Economics; Dickens, Hard Times; Austen, Emma; Camus; Ibsen; Gogol; Kawabata; Louise Erdrich, Tracks; Luis Borges, Labyrinths

Senior Year at Atheneum. The final graduating year at Atheneum consists of special areas of study in addition to normal course work. Seniors will be expected to write a major thesis on a specific topic of interest and committment. This thesis will be reviewed by a staff committee and discussed in an oral exam near the end of the year. Seniors will have more independent working time during school, and off campus studies will be encouraged. A community service project such as working in a political campaign, work with charity organizations, volunteer tutoring of younger students, or a choice of other work/study projects will extend their learning experience beyond campus. Graduating seniors will have actual working experience to prepare them to participate in larger communities.