In the 2023-2024 school year, Jesuit High School Sacramento will be adding AP Environmental Science to its course catalog. AP Environmental Science is a year-long course, and as an AP course, it will have a curriculum developed by the College Board.

In the fall semester, Assistant Principal for Academics Mr. Colin O’Connor ’04 and the Jesuit Science Department traveled to Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland, California. There, they saw Bishop O’Dowd’s impressive outdoor garden that was started 30 years ago. Jesuit’s science contingent learned that it had all started with an AP Environmental Science course, and as a result, AP Environmental Science was put on Jesuit’s radar.

“We have strong numbers of interest in Environmental Science, the regular class, right now,” Mr. O’Connor said. “And we surmised that there were enough students who would be interested in taking on an AP level that it wouldn’t wreck the interest in the regular level of Environmental Science, but provide students an opportunity to lean a little bit more fully into that advanced science track.”

The current Environmental Science course currently taught by Mr. Nick Lai is a one year elective offered to juniors and seniors. While AP Environmental Science will require more effort and deeper critical thinking, the base concepts will remain the same.

“[Our current Environmental Science course] is a mixture of a science class and a social science class, as it will be in AP Environmental Science,” Mr. Lai said. “We talk a lot about not just the scientific issues but the social issues that stem from that, how politics gets involved because Environmental Science very much informs a lot of policy that gets decided in this country.” 

Mr. Lai believes that students can use AP Environmental Science as an introduction to harder AP courses. 

“I like to think that AP Environmental is a lot more accessible of an AP course than some of the other science courses like AP Bio or AP Chem,” Mr. Lai said. “The subject matter is really understandable. It’s something that students see every single day and experience if they watch the news at all.”

Mr. O’Connor hopes that the addition of AP Environmental Science will be seen by students as more than just another option for science courses.

“I also hope it provides students a better opportunity to lean into an area that they might be passionate about, or may not know they are passionate about in terms of understanding environmental issues, understanding how we care for our home, which is one of the universal Apostolic preferences of the Society of Jesus,” Mr. O’Connor said.

Furthermore, AP Environmental Science is one of the more applicable sciences as it discusses everyday problems such as littering, which is an issue right now at Jesuit.

“I think maybe having an advanced class for them to talk about those topics in a mature college approximate way in an AP Class means that maybe there’s gonna be a little bit better student interest in environmental initiatives around campus and off campus as well,” Mr. O’Connor said.

AP Environmental Science will provide students that have an interest for the environment with a college level course to explore their passion.