At Nueva, learning is authentic, complex, and intellectually rigorous.
Students do real work as authors, artists, inventors, explorers, athletes, and mathematicians. Giving students choice, autonomy, and high expectations for growth, we harness intrinsic motivation as the engine for academic excellence.
Through an interdisciplinary and inquiry-based program, students discover and master foundational skills in traditional academic disciplines while learning to grapple with the unknown, embrace multiple perspectives, and create novel solutions.
The Nueva science curriculum comprises articulated developmental sequences built on previous ideas and skills.The science program operates with the guiding belief that students learn science by doing — whether it be designing their own labs, conducting scientific experiments, or testing their own scientific theories. Science content reflects the latest scientific research with a blend of both physical and life sciences, and every new topic builds upon previous content for an interconnected perspective. By utilizing inquiry and experiential learning to cement understanding, students learn concepts through investigations, experiments, and projects. Students also discuss and reflect upon teachings to further educational growth.
Teachers get students excited to involve themselves in science by building investigations that simultaneously teach important skills and incorporate student interests. The scientific work that students accomplish is always interconnected with both the thematic work of the grade and the Nueva curriculum at large. Nueva standards of education reference curricular goals of national and state standards, but are uniquely adapted to fit Nueva’s educational philosophy and students’ capabilities.
In the Lower School, students gain hands-on experience with design, engineering, and computer science through projects integrated into their classrooms as well as opportunities to engage with the I-Lab faculty both inside and outside of the Hillsborough I-Lab.
Design engineering projects arise from curriculum-related collaborations between grade-level teachers and I-Lab faculty. Students experience Design Thinking and I-Lab skills as an integral part of their thematic studies. For example, a class studying or working with the chickens in the Garden may visit the I-Lab to learn basic woodworking skills to build coops. Students also practice the Design Thinking process to prototype solutions to help a classmate with a physical challenge such as a broken leg, and as part of their Immigration study, second graders imagine ways to redesign the immigration experience at Angel Island.
The core design engineering curriculum, taught in the I-Lab, begins in fourth grade when all students work with an I-Lab faculty for one semester to dive deeply into an engineering challenge.
The theme of Computer Science is also interwoven throughout the Lower School experience, as a part of educating our youngest students on the responsible use of technology. The focus here is to introduce and develop their emerging computing skills: typing, digital storytelling, conceptual programming, search and online research strategies, media literacy, ethical online behavior, and digital communication and collaboration skills.
Formal technology courses begin in first grade, where students gain exposure to computers as tools for enhancing productivity and creative expression. Students also learn to use blocks-based programming environments and practice coding through a series of projects. As with Design Engineering, beginning in fourth grade, students take a dedicated Computer Science course in the I-Lab for one semester. This deepens their skills in computational thinking and coding, and prepares them to transition to our Middle School program.
In addition to these formal experiences, the I-Lab at Hillsborough campus is frequently open during recess and after school so students can drop in and work on personal projects with mentorship from I-Lab faculty.
The science program incorporates interdisciplinary methods that open doors to greater complexity and real-world application. Labs require students to hone their data-interpretation skills to analyze scientific problems. In addition to mathematics, humanities, arts, Design Thinking, and engineering are woven into the science program through integrated cross-curricular projects. Students learn how to observe physical phenomena and form questions and theories supported by evidence. The goal is for all students to feel excited about science by discovering concepts and being able to apply or reuse those discoveries in unexpected places.
Fifth grade science is an integrated course framed around large scale system interactions and the diversity of life. The central aim of the course is to empower students as scientific thinkers and planetary stewards. Through the learning experiences this year, students will be introduced to these Nueva Transferable Science Skills they will refine throughout middle school:
Asking scientific questions
Constructing explanations
Developing and using models
Arguing from evidence
Planning and carrying out investigations
Evaluating science
Analyzing data
Communicating science
Sense of Place is the overall course theme, as students will be exploring our planet and gaining an understanding of their place in the Bay Area and in Earth’s ecosystems. Units include:
Rocks and Minerals
Marine Science
Cell Biology
Climate Change
Monterey Bay Ecology
Environmental Science Storytelling
5th Grade Computer Science
For each of the four years of middle school, students cycle through one semester of Design Engineering and one semester of Computer Science, taught in the I-Lab by our faculty at the Hillsborough campus.
The fifth-grade Design Thinking, Engineering, and Computer Science class challenges students to use the design thinking process to transform their ideas into solutions to problems. The fall semester focuses on design engineering. Students practice skills and build confidence with parts of the design thinking process like brainstorming and prototyping, and new tools, such as Illustrator for the laser cutter and Tinkercad for the 3D-printer, and use them in a design thinking project. Students then focus on computer science through a series of activities and projects in the spring semester using JavaScript in the Code.org platform. Students continue to develop their resilience as they are exposed to different programming concepts and lay the foundation for future CS classes.