The science department consists of environmental science, biology, chemistry 1 and 2, physics, and the Science Olympiad. Amy Thut is the teacher of the environmental science (9th grade) and biology (10th grade) classes. Her goal for these classes is to figure out “how to inspire students to care for the earth without overwhelming them.” She pursues this by first making a lot of the learning experience hands on by going outdoors and on field trips, and second, trying to always give a good example of different solutions whenever a problem is presented. These methods are some of the highlights of environmental science (2 semester course). In biology, (2 semester course) the student’s focus is on genetics, natural selections, fossils, classifications, botany, and ornithology. The students get to do a few more hands on activities, including breeding fruit flies, sketching a wide variety of plants, and taking a field trip for bird watching.
Students in Period 4 physics do an expirement.
Calvin Swartzendruber teaches chemistry 1 and 2, physics, and is sponsor of the Science Olympiad. In chemistry 1 (2 semester course) the focus is primarily on writing and balancing equations. At the end of the course the students have an independent project of researching and testing that lasts a few weeks. Chemistry 2 (newly a 2 semester course) focuses on organic chemistry and biochemistry. There is an opportunity to do more hands on activities, such as extracting caffeine from pepsi, making foam, making glow sticks, urine analysis, etc. This course is also offered as a dual credit class with Goshen College. In physics (2 semester course) there is a lot of work on mechanics. This goes into velocity, forces, and Newton’s Law, and, as a highlight, making a catapult.
The Science Olympiad is an after school team that any high school student at Bethany is eligible to participate in. This year there are six students on the team. This team competes with other teams from different schools, building robots, solving equations, and figuring out different problems within a specific amount of time. This year the team came in 7th place with Himal King (‘13) and Ryan Minter (‘13) winning gold medals and Byeong Chan (‘13) winning a silver medal.