This course will introduce you to a systematic process of critical thinking which is indispensable to all educated persons. It is a process by which we develop and support our beliefs and evaluate the strength of arguments made by others. Critical Thinking is designed to help motivated learners develop into fair-minded critical thinkers and provide a means to systematically practice and improve one's quality of thinking; learning, and problem solving.
- Teacher: Ian Lewis
The Microeconomics course is designed to provide a study of individual markets in our economy. We will examine price-output behavior in purely competitive, oligopolistic, monopolistically competitve, and monopolistic markets. Other topics reviewed in this course include: Resource markets, concentration ratios, labor and unions, pollution, agriculture, and international trade. In summary, our studies will emphasize how households and firms make decisions and interact within the economic markets in which we live. This course fulfills a social science requirement.
- Teacher: Beth Steiger
Sociology is the scientific study of humans living with one another in a society. Basic social concepts studied include: social organization, culture, collective behavior, deviant behavior, stratification, population, and social institutions such as family, religion, and education. Students are exposed to fundamental theories, methods, and techniques used by sociologists.
- Teacher: Dayle Jackson
A study of the major aspects of American government on national, state, and local levels. Special emphasis on national government, with comparisons between the levels of government made thoughout the course. Satisfies Michigan requirements on political science.
- Teacher: Kara Johnson
This course provides a general introduction to the foundational skills of the Humanities: observation, description, analysis, and explanation. Students will consider evidence from fields including architecture, music, advertising, cartography, and literature, both fiction and non-fiction. Some evidence will be observed by way of fieldwork, with visits to sites and events of cultural significance. Emphasis will be on how meaning is constructed and conveyed rather that what meaning is attributed to any given piece of evidence.
- Teacher: John Austin
This course covers the political, social, and cultural history of the United States from the Reconstruction period to the present. It examines the rebuilding of the nation after the Civil War; settlement in the Midwest and industrilization; the Progressive Era; World War I; the 1920's and the Great Depression; World War II; the Cold War at home and abroad; the political and cultural transformation of the 1960s and 1970s; and the resurgence of conservatism.
- Teacher: Kara Johnson