Science

Science Highlights and Special Programs

Curriculum News

The science department at Passaic Valley High School offers courses for the diverse learning needs of our students. Students can work at an Honors level in Biology, Chemistry and Physics, or an accelerated level for Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Environmental Science. In addition, electives are offered in Anatomy and Physiology
Honors, Forensic and Allied Health Sciences.

College credits can be earned through College Board in our Advanced Placement courses in Biology, Environmental Science, Chemistry and Physics. Additionally, students can earn college credit for our Anatomy and Physiology Honors Course through our collaboration with Seton Hall’s Project Acceleration.

For the 24-25 school year, students in both AP Environmental Science and AP Biology performed above state average on the advanced placement test. For the students in AP Biology, the 24-25 represents the third consecutive year that 100% of students taking the exam scored a 3 or better on the exam.

Science students have opportunities to apply Engineering Design principles to several projects throughout the year including Biology I Honors programs to develop a self-sustaining nitrogen cycle, a “beak” to test natural selection, and a device to clean up a “toxic” waste site. Anatomy and Physiology students create a device to repair “broken”
bones. In addition, the culminating project of our AP Physics course is a Rube Goldberg machine that involves students not only in AP Physics, but also AP Calculus and our Media and Art courses.

Students will also use video game interfaces in Biology to develop and apply scientific method of hypothesis building, data collection and analysis to real world scenarios.

ABA Environmental Science

This course focuses on teaching neurologically diverse students, hands on skills in multiple forms of gardening. The students are taught how to farm hydroponically. This includes tasks like preparing growing media for planting, planting seeds and monitoring the health of the plants in the hydroponic systems. To date the students have hydroponically grown and harvested 21 pounds of produce. Some of the students have also been able to participate in an internship at GreensDoGood, an Innovative Vertical Farm in Hackensack, NJ that works exclusively with adults and teens with autism.

Environmental Science classes are learning about energy resources--nonrenewable and renewable. They are currently working in teams to build solar ovens and will compete with each other to achieve the highest temperature.

NASA Projects both being done with STEM Explorations

STEM Explorations is currently working on two projects with NASA.

Project 1, Growing Space Chiles
The students are growing New Mexico Chimayo chiles in the classroom. We are currently testing the impacts of regular watering vs. intermittent watering and the impacts on capsaicin development, the ingredient that makes chiles hot. The data we are collecting has been guided by NASA’s own research on the ISS. This particular chile was grown on the ISS during the summer of 2021. It was the longest and most complex agricultural experiment ever conducted on the ISS. The data that is being collected by the students will be shared with NASA and the chiles will be sent to the University of New Mexico for capsaicin testing in their labs.

The goal of this project is to learn the best way to grow food in space. Why do want to grow food in food space? First, sending food into space is very expensive and takes up a lot space in resupply missions. Second, astronauts have very specific dietary requirements while in space, and they can’t get all of the nutrients they need from the food that is being supplied, so they have to take a lot of supplemental vitamins. By growing their own food, they can have access to fresh, nutrient dense food that is very flavorful. Third, NASA has aspirations of colonizing the Moon and Mars, in order to be able to do that, we need to be able to grow food in those locations. Again this research is providing valuable data on how to grow plants in microgravity environments.

Project 2, Fairchild Botanical Garden Miami / NASA
We are currently finishing up a project working with the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden: Your Miami Botanical Garden (fairchildgarden.org) and NASA. We are growing radishes using a simulated VEGGIE system, testing different growing protocols and cultivars. The goal of this project is help guide NASA’s research by providing them with as much data as possible so they can make better decisions about which types of plants to research and which ones they want to send to the International Space Station (ISS) for further testing in microgravity. Student selected plants from this research have been grown in the ISS.

Science students have opportunities to apply Engineering Design principles to several projects throughout the year including: Biology I Honors programs to develop a self-sustaining nitrogen cycle, and a device to clean up a “toxic” waste site. Anatomy and Physiology Honors students create a device to repair broken “bones”.

In Spring of 2022, the Biology I Essentials course will be working with TytoLearning, a video game interface, on the implementation of a module on Genetics and Growth.

A highlight of the AP Physics course is the Rube Goldberg presentations that are held each year after the AP testing. This activity has become the event of the spring and involves students in multiple disciplines including AP Physics, AP Calculus, and students in our Media and Art Courses.

Extracurricular Activities