BSMCA Elective Course Offerings
Business & Technology
- ○This semester-long Wellness Education course’s purpose is to further develop the knowledge, skills and values to enhance healthy behaviors that influence lifestyle choices and student health and fitness. Students will realize the full benefit of this course when it is taught with an integral approach.
General Electives
- ●Leadership Skills Development
- ○The purpose of this course is to teach leadership skills, parliamentary procedure, problem solving, decision making, communication skills, group dynamics, time and stress management, public speaking, human relations, public relations, team building, and other group processes.
- ●STEM Environmental Science
- ○This course is an integrated Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) course for middle school students. M/J STEM Environmental Science includes an integration of standards from science, mathematics, and english language arts (ELA) through the application to STEM problem solving using environmental sciences knowledge and science and engineering practices. Environmental sciences through applications such as ecosystem management, human-environmental impact, ecology and agriculture, land and resource management, and civil and environmental engineering, are emphasized in this course. Laboratory investigations that include the use of scientific inquiry, research, measurement, problem solving, laboratory apparatus and technologies, experimental procedures, and safety procedures are an integral part of this course. The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) recommends that at the middle school level, all students should have multiple opportunities every week to explore science laboratory investigations (labs). School laboratory investigations are defined by the National Research Council (NRC) as an experience in the laboratory, classroom, or the field that provides students with opportunities to interact directly with natural phenomena or with data collected by others using tools, materials, data collection techniques, and models (NRC, 2006, p. 3). Laboratory investigations in the middle school classroom should help all students develop a growing understanding of the complexity and ambiguity of empirical work, as well as the skills to calibrate and troubleshoot equipment used to make observations. Learners should understand measurement error; and have the skills to aggregate, interpret, and present the resulting data (NRC 2006, p. 77; NSTA, 2007).
- ●Speech-Debate
- ○This course is focused on the use of correct and effective language and organizational skills in preparing, delivering, and evaluating different types of oral presentations and debate. Students will critique speeches, paying attention to content, organization, language, and delivery style, and produce and present well-structured, developed speeches.