Integrated Biology/Chemistry: Why Riverdale Made the Switch

This school year, the ninth and tenth-grade individual biology and chemistry courses have switched to an Integrated Biology/Chemistry combination course beginning with the Class of 2027. The teachers in the science department have been anticipating combining the two courses for over a decade due to the overlapping information in the two courses, and have finally made the long-awaited switch.

A team of teachers from the Middle and Upper School science departments consisting of Dr. Michele Blum, Dr. Monica Murakami, Mr. Kyle Augustine, and Dr. Teresa DiMauro began by identifying the most essential things to incorporate into the new course and later created a detailed description of the syllabus.

Dr. Murakami enthusiastically remarked, “I cannot tell you how fun it is to work as a team. We have really animated discussions about the way that we teach things.” The science department utilized a comprehensive chart to map out the course’s trajectory.

Switching the original science courses to Integrated Biology/Chemistry was originally proposed back in 2013 by Dr. Rachel Cox, Upper School science teacher and Director of Science Research, and Ms. Eileen Sullivan, a former chemistry and physics teacher. When Ms. Sullivan left Riverdale, the idea of switching the course was put on pause. Later, in 2019, the new course idea was brought back and approved by Mr. Ricky Lapidus, former Dean of Faculty. In 2021, Riverdale’s Curriculum Committee received the proposal and gave it the green light. It was officially launched for the ninth graders in the fall of 2023.

Before the creation of Integrated Biology/Chemistry, many biology teachers faced the challenge of teaching students who did not have a solid understanding of the basics of chemistry. Dr. Murakami recalled having to teach a crash course in chemistry for students to understand each of the biomes, the idea of survival, and how plants work—crucial aspects of the biology course. One goal that the science teachers had was to help students to fully understand real-world issues such as climate change. Without the integration of both courses, students found it challenging to establish meaningful connections with real-world context. Ms. Shabari Lasrado, Head of the Science Department, said, “Most kids, even my 8th graders right now, know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas...but they can’t explain what that actually means.” These mounting challenges of teaching one subject without the other ultimately led to the proposal of this new course.

On the other hand, the teachers are learning about and tweaking the course as they go. The learning curve to the process is finding ways to connect the dots between Biology and Chemistry in an insightful way, and in a way that helps the students gain a greater understanding of each topic.

The teachers are proud of the new course they have created, and they think it is much more effective than the old separated Biology and Chemistry courses. When asked about how the course differed from the one the current upperclassmen took, Dr. Murakami even said that they were “going to make them jealous!”

Annabel Blitzer, a ninth-grade student in the Integrated Biology/Chemistry course, noticed a difference in her understanding of the major concepts. She thought it was “easier to learn biology with the knowledge of chemistry because it’s easier to connect the ideas to one another.” She believed that it would be harder to “understand certain chemistry ideas without the biology knowledge and vice versa” and that the implementation of this curriculum is very helpful to ninth-grade students.

The success of the Integrated Biology/Chemistry course marks a significant step forward in Riverdale’s science curriculum. However, several questions remain unanswered.

For instance, how will the second half of the course expand on the fundamental principles already taught? What long-term impacts will this integrated approach have on students’ understanding of science and their ability to tackle real-world issues? The Riverdale community eagerly anticipates the ongoing evolution of the course and is committed to ensuring its effectiveness in the years to come.