The DHS/DMS science curriculum includes courses in the natural sciences: biology, chemistry, physics and environmental science.

Science courses introduce students in grades 6-12 to scientific investigation in the physical, biological, and earth sciences.

All science courses use the eight science practices:

Asking questions

Planning and carrying out investigations

Using mathematical and computational thinking

Developing and using models

Analyzing and interpreting data

Constructing explanations

Engaging in argument from evidence

Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

Our core academic classes focus on real-world applications within student's every day lives. We strive to stimulate student interest in the wonders of science by providing a foundation of scientific knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will allow our students to pursue their interests in science in their career or further academic pursuits. and to lay a foundation of scientific literacy which will enable students to become productive and informed participants in a changing technological society.

The 6-12 science curriculum offers a series of increasingly sophisticated courses in the physical, biological, and earth sciences that spiral through the seven years of instruction from DMS through DHS. 

The DMS Science Department uses SEPUP program that centers instruction around real world problems and asks students to use their science practices to solve these problems while learning content focused on the 2016 Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks.

Grade 6

Our sixth grade students will use the topics of geologic processes, human impact on earth's systems, human body systems, cells to organisms, and forces and motion, to solve real world problems.

Grade 7

Students in grade seven will investigate energy and energy transformations, earth’s resources, fields and interactions, and weather and climate, and ecology.

Grade 8

Real world problems from space science, the chemistry of materials, chemical reactions, genetics and reproduction, and evolution will be the focus of our eighth grade science students.

Pathways for success in science can vary from the more common biology, chemistry and physics path that would be most appropriate for students headed to a four year college with a math and science major, to a pathway more tailored to a student’s interest in biotechnology, environmental science, chemistry or forensic science.