Namaste!

After years of teaching this year-long course to high school seniors, I have learned to tweak and shape the core curriculum to fit different students' needs and curiosities.  Although I never know from one class to the next what will spark an individual student's interest or sense of wonder, I always want to be prepared to provide fuel for them.  I encourage my students to ask questions and instigate discussion, no matter how tangential to the day's material, and to engage me and their classmates in dialogue.  When successful, this practice invariably causes us to fall off course and deviate from the assigned syllabus.  This used to concern me.  But with each year, I learn to anticipate these tangential deviations and recognize certain patterns and areas of interest among my students.  In order to satisfy their curiosity and feed their inquisitive spirits, I've tried to incorporate these common themes into my syllabi by way of individual projects, discussion forums, daily questions, weekly "expert presentations" and term seminars.  In this way, students are able to pursue for credit, what they find most engaging in the material presented without being penalized academically for what doesn't "grab them".

These web pages are designed to guide students' initial investigations and research and to offer them challenging and unique ideas for individual and final projects.  My aim is to stimulate their natural curiosities and to provide students with credible and reliable web and print resources for further research and study.  Some assignments given on the syllabi such as discussion forums and subject/unit seminars are designed by the teacher to stimulate inquiry and comparative investigation.  Others however, such as the daily questions, individual final projects, and "expert presentations" are generated wholly by the students.  Students should not feel bound by or limited to the suggested topics.  Students should however, seek the approval of the teacher before they pursue any research project or presentation of their own creation.

The suggested topics and resources presented here are by no means final or complete.  I welcome suggestions and recommendations.