Curriculum
The School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt’s curriculum is designed to give students access to interdisciplinary views of science and to develop the skills and methods of inquiry necessary for conducting scientific research. Our curriculum not only draws from local, state, and national standards for topics, but also reaches beyond those benchmarks into the many resources found on a research university campus to provide a richer content base for students.
Instruction typically includes classroom and virtual lectures, inquiry-based activities, small group discussions, and hands-on laboratory work. Every class encourages each student’s engagement with the concepts at hand, as well as a series of various assessments to allow students to showcase their progress.
Following each week’s lesson, students and instructors interact through our online classroom community, Brightspace. All assignments are posted on the site for access at any time, whether the student is at home, in study hall at their school, or our classroom here at Vanderbilt. The Brightspace environment enables instructors to leave feedback, past and upcoming assignments, due dates, and current grades for students, ensuring participants are always kept up-to-date on their class achievements.
The faculty and instructors strive to create engaging, innovative means of passing on their own curiosities about the material and foster critical thinking, reasoning, and effective communication skills in the students. Due to the interdisciplinary, sequential curriculum, it is required that students commit to enrolling for all four years of the program.
Students will earn 1 unit of advanced academic high school credit upon completion of each of the SSMV’s seven courses.
9TH GRADE
10th Grade
- Summer Research I and the Joint Retreat Research Symposium
- Interdisciplinary Science II
11TH GRADE
- Summer Research II and the Joint Retreat Research Symposium
- Interdisciplinary Science III