WHEN UNIVERSITIES REJECT HIGH SCHOOL EARTH SCIENCE

The University of California requires two high-school lab science courses for admission. It specifies courses in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. Although the University supposedly accepts Earth Science courses that can demonstrate Biology, Chemistry and Physics applications, in practice, most Earth Science courses are rejected, even if they contain the same rigor as other high-school science courses. Why? The University sees that many 9^th grade Earth Science courses are designed for non-college bound students, so they assume that all Earth Science courses lack rigor. As a direct result of this policy, schools in California have no incentive to offer rigorous Earth Science lab courses to their college-bound students, and Earth Science is doomed to remain the 9^th grade “rocks-for-jocks” course, often without a lab component. Is there a solution? Perhaps. An honors Geology course taught at Harvard-Westlake already provides 11th and 12th graders with lab science status as well as college credit through UCLA Extension. We have presented the University with a similar honors Earth Science course, designed as a capstone course for 11^th and 12^th grades, requiring a chemistry prerequisite, and modeled after the UCLA's introductory Earth and Space Science course. Once that course is approved as an acceptable laboratory course by the UC System, it can become a model for future California high-school Earth Science courses.