Curriculum Detail

Integrated Studies

How does media shape our society? How can we use algebra to respond to health crises? How can we use film to raise consciousness about injustice? These are the type of questions students encounter in our integrated studies courses, where they are challenged to think by integrating knowledge and skills from a variety of academic disciplines.

  • Neotropics of Latin America (Off campus)

    (Prerequisites: Completion of Spanish 3A and permission of the department. This course can be equivalent to Spanish 3B. If students take this course instead of 3B, an elective course will be required to take upon return of the course.)
     
    Offered every other year, this trip is a cooperative effort between the Language and Science departments. Students travel to the neotropics of Latin America for a program of immersion in tropical ecosystems and in Spanish language and culture. In the science component, students travel to various tropical ecosystems and conduct field experiments and projects. The challenges of economic development, conservation and sustainable agriculture are examined in an interdisciplinary manner. The language program consists of homestays with local families, organized field trips, and everyday conversational Spanish. Students maintain both science and Spanish journals as they travel. The program starts with an intensive pre‑orientation week at CSW prior to departure. There is an extra charge for this course, which grants two lab science credits, one foreign language credit, one athletic credit, and one D-block credit.

    *This course awards credit toward the social justice requirement. 

  • Off Campus to China and Taiwan

    (Prerequisites: Completion of Mandarin 3A or permission of the department. This course can satisfy the level 3B graduation requirement. If a student completes this course instead of Mandarin 3B as a 10th or 11th grader, it is expected that they will continue in the Mandarin program's upper level electives in the subsequent year(s) )
    In this course, students travel to China and Taiwan to strengthen their Mandarin Chinese as well as learn about the history, geography, culture, life, arts, and people in the two different Chinese societies. Students will learn to better understand and appreciate American perspective and culture through the discovery of China's and Taiwan’s.  Students will attend classes and stay in homestays in China and Taiwan. Students will keep personal journals, contribute to a group a blog, and complete a personally designed research project.

    Enrollment is with department permission only.

    There is an additional charge for the course, which offers two blocks of language credit, one block of history credit, and one D‑block credit.

     
    This course awards credit toward the social justice requirement.



  • Off Campus to France

    (Prerequisites: Completion of French 3A and permission of the department. It can be equivalent to French 3B. If students take this course instead of 3B, an elective course will be required to take upon return of the course.)

    Students will travel to France for four weeks for a program of total immersion in French language, history, and culture. During the first week prior to departure, the group will have an intensive orientation on the culture, art, history, and architecture of France, during which they will spend time working on their project presentations. They will finish the first week with presentations of their findings. The following four weeks will be spent in Montpellier, France. The students will take a French course and explore the area and the important sites surrounding them. During the last three days of the trip, they will tour Paris and Versailles During their stay in France, they will live with host families carefully selected in order to accommodate them accordingly. While traveling, students will keep a journal and fulfill other requirements adapted to their language and/or art background. Upon their return, students will prepare mandatory projects, including a research paper on their on-site findings, to earn full credit. This course, offered in module 5, is open to twelve students of advanced French. Enrollment is with department permission only. There is an extra charge for the course, which offers 2 blocks of language credit, 1 block of history credit, and 1 D-block credit.
     
    * This course awards credit towards the Social Justice graduation requirement

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Department Faculty

45 Georgian Road, Weston, MA 02493
Phone: (781) 642-8600
CSW—a gender-inclusive day and boarding school for grades 9-12—is a national leader in progressive education. We live out our values of inquiry-based learning, student agency, and embracing diverse perspectives in every aspect of our student experience. Young people come to CSW to learn how to learn and then put what they learn into action—essential skills they carry into their futures as doers, makers, innovators, leaders, and exceptional humans who do meaningful work in the world.