STEM at Seven Hills

Free Trial Class - Latin in Your Natural World

Meets: Saturday, September 12 from 9-9:30am Pacific (12-12:30pm Eastern), Zoom - Ages 8-12

Step outside and learn to name the natural world the way naturalists have for centuries. This free trial is a hands-on preview of a fall course inspired by field ecology: students go outdoors to observe plants and animals, identify them by their distinguishing characteristics, and build a working vocabulary in Latin along the way.

Following the trial, students head outside to a backyard, a park, even a city sidewalk works, and look closely at what's there: grass, a dandelion, a pigeon. Common species are the point, since access to wilderness varies but everyday nature is everywhere. Students will pick up a few foundational Latin terms for describing their surroundings (plants, animals, geography, weather) and get a taste of how scientific names encode real information about an organism.

The broader goal, carried through the full fall course, is a lasting appreciation for the outdoors. By term's end, students work toward describing a chosen plant or animal by its identifying traits, its role in its environment, and the story behind its scientific name, with an optional final project students can present to their peers.

To register for the free trial class, please complete the registration form. We will be in touch with all of the class details.

Fall, 2026 - STEM in the Classics

Meets: Thursdays from 9-10am Pacific (12-1pm Eastern) - September 3 through November 19

In this class, students will study figures of the ancient world in the STEM context: Archimedes, Hippocrates, Pliny the Elder, Pythagoras, and more, with the goal of understanding how the Greeks and Romans approached the topics of math, medicine, the natural world, and technology. The main theme of the course is that the Greeks/Romans typically approached these ideas from a Platonic perspective: they wanted to be able to categorize and generalize and discover absolutes, an approach that works well (though not perfectly) in math, but not so well with science and medicine.

Students will complete reading assignments and participate in thoughtful class discussions, gaining knowledge of the ancient world that can directly apply to the present. Info + Registration.