Massanutten Regional Governor's School

Students may dual enroll with Laurel Ridge Community College

This course will provide students with a foundation in the issues surrounding agriculture, conservation, and management of water, soil, plants, forests, and wildlife. As a result of successfully completing this course, students will be able to explain how to best manage natural resources from a scientific, ecological, economic, and agricultural viewpoint; apply oral, visual, and interpersonal communication skills; understand how decisions affect agriculture and the environment in both positive and negative ways; understand the connectedness of Agro- Ecology and Environmental Science; work collaboratively and cooperatively with their peers on various hands-on projects; and develop and hone leadership development skills.

Prerequisite: 1140

Students may dual enroll with Laurel Ridge Community College

Throughout the first semester, this course introduces students to critical thinking and the fundamentals of academic writing. Through the writing process, students refine topics; develop and support ideas; investigate, evaluate, and incorporate appropriate resources; edit for effective style and usage; and determine appropriate approaches for a variety of contexts, audiences, and purposes. Writing activities will include exposition and argumentation with at least one researched essay. The writing in this course is non-fiction.

During second semester, students continues to develop college-level writing with increased emphasis on critical essays, argumentation and research, and develops these competencies through the examination of a range of texts about the human experience. This course requires students to locate, evaluate, integrate, and document sources and effectively edit for style and usage.

Prerequisite: 3143 and 3135

Students may dual enroll with Laurel Ridge Community College

This course will provide students with a foundation in the area of descriptive statistics and statistical inference. Students will explore data, anticipate patterns and learn sampling and experimental methods. Students will learn to extrapolate summary statistics to populations through estimation, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing and much more in-depth inferential analysis and interpretations within context. Students will make connections between all phases of the statistical process, including design, analysis, and contextual conclusions. Students will learn to communicate methods, results, and interpretations using appropriate statistical vocabulary. Students will use graphing calculators, computers, and computer output in order to explore further data analysis, model assessment, and perform simulations.

Students may dual enroll with Laurel Ridge Community College

Using the basics of natural resources, ecology, and agriculture, this course will examine the issues facing sustainable agriculture today. As a result of successfully completing this course, students will be able to understand current policy and public programs related to land use, environmental protection, water quality, and climate change; identify relevant leadership opportunities that will effect change for the benefit of agricultural and rural communities; apply oral, visual, and interpersonal communication skills; identify, discuss, and apply personal strengths in self and others; apply shared leadership skills in small group settings; identify personal ways of solving problems and how individual styles affect group interactions; demonstrate effective decision-making techniques; utilize effective leadership and problem solving techniques in small group settings; analyze problems associated with working in a group or team; and utilize practical strategies to improve team performance and cohesion.

Prerequisite: 1195

Students may dual enroll with Laurel Ridge Community College

In this course, students will read a variety of literary works and develop critical reading, writing, and thinking skills through analysis of those works. Students will be expected to demonstrate the ability to read, analyze, and interpret literary texts from multiple perspectives, including artistic, cultural, historical, and comparative, and share that understanding in both oral and written form. Students will consider the literature chronologically to show the progression of literary traditions, and they will identify ideas and characteristics of individual cultures, as well as those that are universal. In addition, students will be expected to demonstrate the ability to conduct literary research by exploring a literary work independently and writing about it with clear, cogent prose.

Prerequisite: 3162

Students may dual enroll with Laurel Ridge Community College

This course presents analytic geometry and calculus of algebraic and transcendental functions. Topics will include the study of limits, derivatives, differentials, rectangular, polar, and parametric graphing, indefinite and definite integrals, and methods of integration along with their applications.

Students may dual enroll with Laurel Ridge Community College

This is a college level course and is an interdisciplinary study combining ideas and information from biology, chemistry, and geology, as well as the social science fields of economics and political science. The research aspect of this course will investigate how nature works and how things are interconnected. The fundamental scientific and social content of these areas to be mastered before the in-depth treatment of key environmental issues may be accomplished.

Students acquire skills and concepts inherent in the research process, which for all disciplines in based upon the scientific method of inquiry. Students are encouraged to link their problem investigations and solutions to science. At the beginning of the year, students formulate a testable hypothesis and explore it through primary research and data interpretation. At the end of the academic year, students give a public presentation of their findings and conclusions, as well as completing a deliverable product suited to their field of research. A component of this course is a mentorship which is designed to allow the student to pair up with a community-based mentor for either a short or long-term relationship geared towards enhancing the in-school curriculum. The number of hours completed and documented will determine the amount of credit the student either .5 or a full credit. Students earn a half credit for 70 mentorship hours or a whole credit for 140 hours.