Origin Stories
Plant a seed. Watch it grow. Discover the connection between humans, nature, and where everything begins.
K–5 builds the bedrock: confident readers, fluent mathematicians, and curious thinkers who already see the world as one connected subject. Three pillars: Great Works (interdisciplinary projects), Math (problem- and discussion-based), and Literacy (reading and writing that sticks).
Plant a seed. Watch it grow. Discover the connection between humans, nature, and where everything begins.
Weather patterns and the feelings that come with them. Kids learn that the unpredictable is part of being alive.
Music as math. Students build instruments, find patterns, and learn that rhythm and counting are the same skill.
Caterpillars, seasons, growing up. Young learners explore the one thing every living thing has in common — transformation.
Body systems through a doctor's eyes. Kids learn how their bodies work — and how to take care of them.
Where does electricity come from? Students investigate energy, technology, and what a sustainable future might look like.
Endangered species and habitat loss — and the very real things kids can do to help protect what's left.
What can robots do? What can only humans do? Kids meet AI on their own terms.
Experimentation, trial and error, and the courage to be wrong on the way to being right.
Food as culture and food as fuel. Students explore how what we eat shapes who we are.
Sundials. Calendars. Clocks. Students study how humans have measured time across history.
Saltwater. Freshwater. Pollution. Access. Students follow water through every cycle that matters.
Ancient Egypt's math and science — and how a civilization 4,000 years ago laid the groundwork for ours.
River and rainforest civilizations — and the natural resources that shaped where humans chose to live.
Simple machines meet civic engagement. Students design a better voting system using what they've learned.
Germs, vaccines, and the small daily habits that keep communities healthy.
Empathy as a skill. Students step into experiences different from their own and learn how perspective changes everything.
The chemistry, biology, and culture that form a person. Self-knowledge through scientific inquiry.
Evolution, adaptation, and the human impact on which species get to survive into tomorrow.
The Vietnam War through poetry, memorials, and the women whose contributions textbooks usually skip.
Social justice leaders and their messages — and the recognition that kids have agency, too.
Coral reef ecosystems — what they do, why they're dying, and what students can do about it.
Cosmology and astrophysics for kids who want the big questions answered now, not later.
How technology evolves — and the responsibility today's choices place on tomorrow's world.
Counting to 100, recognizing patterns, sorting shapes, and the first taste of adding, subtracting, and graphing data — through play, manipulatives, and conversation.
Place value with base-ten blocks. Counting to 120. Two-digit addition. Time, coins, and story problems — all built through hands-on, inquiry-driven tasks.
Three-digit operations with regrouping, the first introduction to fractions, telling time to the minute, measurement, polygons, and graphing.
Multiplication and division become real through arrays and equal groups. Fractions with fraction tiles. Area, perimeter, time, and metric measurement.
Number theory, factors, primes, and place value through the millions. Equivalent fractions, decimals, angles, and the first taste of geometric reasoning.
Volume, coordinate graphing, operations on fractions, and scale modeling. The bridge between elementary fluency and the algebraic thinking ahead.
Read-alouds, poetry, and personal writing. Phonemic awareness, letter formation, and the start of a lifelong love of books.
Letter writing, syllables, compound words, and parts of speech. The first character analyses. The first edits. The first persuasive essay.
Fiction and informational writing. Predictions, comparisons, fact vs. opinion, and the first taste of interviewing and storytelling.
From paragraphs to essays. Character perspective, author's purpose, persuasive and expository writing, and supporting an idea with evidence.
Deepened comprehension, sophisticated writing across forms — essays, letters, book reviews, speeches — and reading aloud with expression and craft.
Realistic fiction. Persuasive and literary essays. Research, citation, and figurative language. Students leave 5th grade as writers — and they know it.
Small-group and one-on-one support woven into every day. Every student has a coach for both the algebra and the friendship-fallout at recess. Academic and social-emotional, side by side.
Future-focused mini-terms between regular sessions. Coding, design challenges, world cultures — the courses kids actually request.
Three 12-week cycles per year. Each cycle, students pick a Humanities, STEM, and Math expedition — and emerge with a real project, not a packet.
Build your own empire from scratch — economy, laws, mythology, the works. Inspired by Rome, the Inca, Medieval Japan, and modern America.
Greek demigods, Egyptian deities, African folk heroes — and the timeless story arc they all share. Students study the Hero's Journey, then write their own.
Why do different cultures eat different foods? Students investigate how meals shape identity, faith, and community — and become Food Ambassadors.
From ancient temples to modern rituals, students walk in the shoes of a pilgrim — exploring traditions, decoding symbols, and seeing how faith shapes life.
Langston Hughes, Billie Holiday, the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Depression. Students find their own voice by following the artists who refused to be silent.
Frederick Douglass. Rachel Carson. MLK. The nonfiction writing that shifted America — and how students can use the same tools to shift the world they live in.
From Hamilton to 1776 — students bring the American Revolution to life through music, drama, and an original mini-production they perform themselves.
Who lived on your land hundreds of years ago? Students dig into local archives, interview neighbors, and tell the real story of where their family stands today.
Got an idea that could change the world? Students study inventors who solved real problems — then design their own product, service, or invention pitch.
William Kamkwamba saved his village with a windmill. Students study everyday change-makers — then run their own campaign for something they care about.
From Motown to TikTok, jazz clubs to Black Lives Matter tees — how music and fashion turned culture into protest. Students design a movement of their own.
How do people start over after war, displacement, or collapse? Students study the White Rose, refugee camps in Kenya, and the rebirth of art in exile.
Where does food really come from? Students grow plants, run a real experiment, interview a farmer, and ask whether our food systems can feed the next generation.
Hurricanes, tsunamis, wildfires. Students study the science behind extreme weather, then design a structure or device that could save lives.
What makes your hometown geologically remarkable? Students explore, research, and build a sustainable tourism pitch for the wonders right outside their door.
Design a tiny home that survives wild weather and runs on zero non-renewable energy — then take it to an alien planet. Architecture meets imagination.
Pets as a doorway into real biology. Students explore body systems, domestication, and animal behavior — and build everything from vet case studies to ethical shelter designs.
Are magical plant remedies real? Foraging meets fantasy herbology as students explore plant adaptations and the science behind traditional — and fictional — cures.
When wolves came back to Yellowstone, even the rivers changed course. Students learn how one species can rewrite a whole ecosystem.
If your brain cells could text your muscles, what would they say? Students explore cells and body systems by comparing them to how a city actually runs.
How does sound actually move? Students break down their favorite songs, run acoustic experiments, and produce their own podcast or mini concert.
Fireworks. Synthetic dyes. The glow of a chemical reaction. Students dive into the molecular magic behind every color they've ever loved.
Junior astronauts in training — with the option to attend a real one-week experience at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville. Yes, real.
Take everyday devices apart. Understand how they tick. Then build your own Rube Goldberg machine — the most fun engineering homework will ever be.
Club treasurer. Travel planner. Cookbook author. Students take real-world roles and discover math is the difference between a good idea and a real one.
Pick a personal goal — fitness, savings, mastering an instrument — and use ratios, percentages, and data to build a roadmap to actually getting there.
If you could design the perfect virtual school, what would it look like? Students use geometry, area, and volume to design Sora's next campus.
Become a Mathematical Nutritionist — using fractions, decimals, and percentages to decode food labels and build a meal plan that actually fuels you.
From breakfast habits to poverty rates — students learn to read the data behind the news, run their own experiments, and think like analysts.
Origami, invented by 6th-century Buddhist monks, is also a masterclass in equations and 3D geometry. Students fold their way through both.
A disease is spreading. Doctors are stumped. As lead medical detective, students use equations and exponents to crack the case before time runs out.
You've inherited a plot of land. Use geometry, transformations, and a few coins to design and build a digital world from scratch.
What does your life look like through the lens of math? Students use equations and graphs to tell the story of who they are — and where they're headed.
By 9th grade, students run mock UN delegations, debate bioethics, build working rocket prototypes, and manage their own portfolios. Rigorous, college-aligned, unrecognizable from the high school you remember.
What makes a hero? A mystic? Students travel the world's creation stories and ask whether the answers have really changed in 3,000 years.
What if Alexander the Great had Instagram? Cleopatra ran a YouTube channel? Students reimagine antiquity as social media — and learn the history cold.
The Islamic Golden Age built the foundations of modern science, math, and art. Students step inside Baghdad's House of Wisdom.
Maya. Aztec. Inca. Mixtec. Toltec. The civilizations textbooks skip — flourishing while Europe called itself "medieval." Students rewrite the global timeline.
Three warriors. One hundred years of chaos. Students study how Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu forged modern Japan.
Renaissance beauty meets modern self-worth. Students investigate beauty standards across history and develop their own voice in defiance of any algorithm.
Blade Runner meets Frankenstein meets the Age of Revolutions. Students explore what it means to be human — and to resist when the system says you aren't.
1984. Animal Farm. Brave New World. Students decode the mechanics of authoritarianism — and design propaganda to learn how the trick works.
Take the floor as a UN delegate, draft resolutions, and negotiate climate, conflict, and AI ethics — with an optional capstone at the HS Model UN Conference in NYC.
Why have authoritarian regimes always come for the libraries first? Students investigate censorship, underground books, and the freedom to read.
Brandon Sanderson. Suzanne Collins. Tomi Adeyemi. Fantasy magic systems through the lens of real chemistry, real history, and real political collapse.
Fast fashion is a 20-trillion-dollar story about labor, gender, climate, and identity. Students design slow-fashion brands that mean something.
From Thomas Paine to today's loudest voices, students study the rhetoric that built America — and write their own political pamphlet on an issue they care about.
The first colonies, the first conflicts, the first hard moral questions about land. Students wrestle with the founding of America from every side.
Slavery to industrialization to AI. What does "work" mean in America — and what will it mean for the students who'll inherit the next economy?
The Civil War wasn't only fought on battlefields. Students explore the lived experience of women — Black and white, North and South — during America's most contested era.
In 1954, comics got "cleaned up" — and an art form was changed forever. Students study how moral panic and creativity have always argued in public.
Vietnam. Woodstock. Civil rights. The Doors. Students don't just learn the '60s — they feel the beat of a generation that refused the script.
Punk, DIY, and the underground press from the '70s to today. Students make their own zines — and discover the power of print outside the algorithm.
Step inside the editorial desks of a real magazine. Students choose a local issue — and run a civic engagement campaign that turns reporting into action.
What if doing the dishes were a work of art? Students learn stop-motion animation inspired by PES and Laika — and turn the mundane into the magical.
Step into the studio. Build a portfolio. Pitch and produce an original podcast worthy of Spotify. Senior year, but make it Audible.
Amanda Gorman. Warsan Shire. Franny Choi. Students read living poets, host a guest from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and write what only they can write.
From operating rooms to courtrooms to climate protests — students debate the hardest ethical questions of our time, and learn frameworks for taking a position.
Calling all aspiring chefs. Students grow ingredients, study cell biology and photosynthesis, and write a cookbook informed by real science.
Bioengineering and biomimicry — students design products inspired by glowing trees, healing viruses, and cells that turn light into fuel.
A murder mystery at the DuBois mansion. Students use blood typing, Punnett squares, and DNA analysis to crack the case — and learn forensic genetics doing it.
What if you could predict the future? Students become genetic counselors — advising families, farmers, and conservationists on what their genes could mean.
What does it take to survive when everything is connected? Students adopt an endangered species and make the case for why it deserves a future.
Homo sapiens sustineri. Students redesign cities, businesses, and habits to work with the earth — not against it.
Chernobyl. Fukushima. Three Mile Island. Students investigate the science, the ethics, and the politics behind nuclear power's most consequential failures.
Every pollutant is also an economic problem. Students follow one chemical from atom to atmosphere to policy debate — and find out who really pays.
Solid popsicles. Flavored foams. Chocolate that melts on cue. Students cook with chemistry — and brand their own pop-up restaurant by the end.
Volcanoes. Mars. The bottom of the ocean. Students engineer materials and gear for the most extreme places matter can exist.
Soap. Kombucha. Bath bombs. Students master the chemistry behind real products — and pitch a brand they could actually launch.
Miracle cures. Fake experiments. TikTok science myths. Students debunk history's most outrageous chemistry scams — using real chemistry.
Build, test, and launch DIY rockets, cars, planes, and boats. Newton's laws stop being abstract the moment your design hits the sky.
Design and build your own Rube Goldberg machine. Students combine motion, force, and Newton's laws into something that actually works.
Just you and nature. Could you survive? Students engineer a real survival guide for a remote location of their choosing — and the physics has to hold up.
How do machines turn energy into motion? Students build two prototypes — one old, one new — and prove which one wins on efficiency.
Coil, magnet, current. Students build a working renewable power generator from scratch — plus an open-source manual so others can build it too.
How does a live concert work? Students study venue acoustics, sound waves, and lighting — by attending one and engineering one.
Indigenous diets were sustainable for thousands of years. Students learn why — and design a food system that could feed the future.
What actually happens when an athlete tears an ACL? Students study famous injuries and design better recovery treatments.
Have we actually improved how we manage water? Students compare ancient stewardship to modern pollution — and run their own water-quality tests.
The stomach is suing the brain. The lungs are tired of the blame. Anatomy meets courtroom drama — and the science has to hold up.
The year is 2050. Earth is your canvas. Can you design a city where humanity thrives without exhausting the planet?
Cervical cancer. HIV. Tuberculosis. Diseases science already knows how to stop. Students design solutions to close the gap.
Linear equations as a tool for community impact. Students design a real, cost-effective renewable energy plan for their own town.
Why do some TikToks blow up and others flop? Students model viral trends using linear and exponential functions — and try to predict the next one.
Lead engineer on a rocket launch. Get the quadratic right and you reach orbit. Get it wrong and… well, students find out.
Fashion designers run on geometry. Students design textile patterns and runway-ready sketches that turn math into wearable art.
From hand-drawn sketch to CAD-rendered prototype. Students learn Onshape and design 3D models for inventions of their own.
Skyscrapers, Instagram art, perfect symmetry — students discover the geometry hiding inside every great design they've ever scrolled past.
Can a polynomial create a million-dollar brand? Students consult for a fictional company — and rebuild it with logos, pricing models, and a pitch deck.
Students build an investor portfolio, track performance, and use exponentials and probability to model real market dynamics.
The 2008 housing crisis was a math story before it was a movie. Students decode it using statistics — and learn how to spot the next one.
Auto-Tune. Noise-canceling headphones. Holograms. Students learn trigonometry by decoding the math behind sound and light.
How do brands know what you'll buy before you do? Students learn marketing-grade data analysis using tools they can run from home.
Every great video game runs on math. Students use vectors and matrices to design a 2D game scene of their own.
Probability and sampling applied to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Real datasets, real arguments, real change.
Circles, parabolas, ellipses — the invisible scaffolding inside every great building. Students analyze a famous structure or design their own.
How do your emotions shape your choices? Students use statistics to investigate the hidden math behind the things they buy, eat, and study.
Built a passion project in your head you've never had time to build? An ISE lets students pitch their own 12-week expedition — research, design, ship — with an expert mentor through the full design-thinking process. The portfolio piece colleges actually remember.