During the 2020-2021 school year, Calvin Christian School’s leadership was exploring the question, “how can we better prepare Calvin’s students academically to engage beyond Calvin’s walls in the applied sciences of today and tomorrow?”.
The outcome of that discussion is Calvin’s Capstone Biotech Program. It is anchored in Calvin’s Educational Philosophy, our identity in Christ, and the truth that God is Creator of all aspects of life from the atomic to macro scale. The Holy Spirit breathes into us the curiosity to explore life in “the sciences”.
What are key features of the Biotech Program?
First, we want to offer more advanced and expanded courses. The Capstone Biotech Program offers expanded, advanced courses and hands-on internships. It begins with physics and its embodiment of the natural laws, atomics and energy. This ties into the atomic nature of chemistry: electrical forces and reactions, and subsequently the integrated study of biologic systems from the micro to macro scale. In addition to Advanced Placement courses, a variety of topical Elective Courses expand the scope of courses offered.
Secondly, the program creates opportunities for students to experience hands-on learning. Courses are designed with rigorous lab components, each year completing between 10-15 labs or lab experiences. From kinematics in physics to titrations in chemistry or enzyme kinetics in biology and more.
Interested students can gain technical work and leadership experience within and beyond the walls of Calvin through the Capstone Internships opportunities.
The inflection point of bringing this Christian worldview to life in the upper school science program comes when marrying it to the undeniable truth that God has created us in His image and likeness, intelligently designed all aspects of life from the atomic to macro scale, integrated life with beautiful simplicity and simultaneous irreducible complexity, has gifted us with a natural curiosity to explore the depth and breadth of life, and through the Holy Spirit breathes into us an excitement and thirst to explore all the intersections of life in “the sciences”. This is what it means to worship God in the lab by seeing His handiwork and declaring His glory.
