The VISTA Health Sciences Curriculum

Through funding from The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, we are offering a school-year length Story-Centered Curriculum in Health Sciences. Read more...

The year in Health Sciences comprises ten “rotations,” each lasting three to four full-time weeks on average, in which students experience what it is like to solve the kinds of problems real professionals solve in various specialized fields related to biology and healthcare. These experiences are set in realistic stories in which the students play the leading role. The rotations are conducted consecutively. Students primarily work on assigned projects in teams, though each rotation has independent tasks as well. Each of the rotations was created with the assistance of an expert in each of the respective specialties. These rotations are designed to be used by homeschoolers, schools, and other educational organizations.

The goal of the curriculum is for students to discover that practicing science is fun and relevant to real world problems. They should also develop a sense of what it would be like to work as a practitioner in the various health sciences fields, so they can decide whether they might someday like a career in healthcare or biology. In addition, students will learn essential skills that are relevant to almost any career they might someday enter, including:

Communication (written and oral)	Reasoning
Human Relations	Research
Project management

Descriptions of all the rotations in the Year in Health Sciences are available here.

For more information, or if you or your student would like to begin the Year in Health Sciences, contact Mike McGarry.