Christian Community Service Project
Xavier’s Christian Community Service Project (CCSP) enables students to serve people in need thoughtfully and reflectively. The project allows students to work with people outside the school community in a professional setting. In the summer between junior and senior year, up-coming seniors are required to complete 160 hours of CCSP at a single organization. Each service organization designates a supervisor to guide the student’s work. Xavier requests that students complete their CCSP in direct service to people in need. During CCSP, students keep a daily journal detailing their experiences and write a reflection paper after everty 40 hours of service. When the seniors return to school, they spend a day sharing their CCSP experiences with their classmates.
This course relies heavily on the maturation of the seniors’ faith and reflective abilities. It takes personal opinions and the Catechism of the Catholic Church starting points for in-depth discussions, reflection papers on life matters, and individual and group debates on moral issues. Taking Christian morality as the foundation for making decisions, the course is framed in such a way as to incorporate contemporary and traditional viewpoints of the role of Jesus Christ, understanding the intricacies of values, choices, conscience, and morality, researching and debating moral issues such as abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, etc., and in depth discussions about the sensitive subjects of sexuality, love, marriage, and commitment.
English Literature IV
The philosophy of Senior literature is to prepare students for SAT, TOFEL, and college level writing. To prepare students to be effective communicators and leaders, by the end of the course, students will read, write, listen, and speak for: information and understanding, literary response and expression, critical analysis and evaluation, and social interaction. This course will provoke discussions; pose serious questions regarding social justice issues, individual rights, and nature of truth. The course will also look more critically at opinion and beliefs by focusing on literature and various writing styles.
Pre-Calculus – Calculus
Calculus is built upon two great ideas, the derivative, which examines slope of a curve and rates of change, and the integral, which deals with sums, areas and volumes. Both of these ideas are the basis for much of mathematics and for many accomplishments towards the new millennium. In arithmetic, operations are carried out on numbers; in algebra, operations are carried out on symbols that stand for numbers; whereas in calculus, operations are carried out on functions that represent the relationship between two variable quantities.
The word “calculus” is a Latin word for stone or pebble. In ancient times, pebbles were used in counting. Thus, calculus roughly means a method of calculation. This field of learning has become so important that a sound knowledge of calculus is essential to study and to appreciate many other disciplines such as biology, business, chemistry, economics, engineering, and physics to name a few. The student should know the basic algebraic terminology and methods. Calculus also depends heavily on analytic geometry. Function notation is also used extensively through the text.
This course in Physics gives students a means by which to learn about natural phenomena in their immediate environment and technology that has a profound effect on their lives through hands-on experience, hypothesizing and research. Areas covered in this course include motion, light, sound, work, forces, heat, quantum mechanics. It is hoped that through this study of the relationships between matter and energy in the universe, the students will also gain a glimpse of the face of God who is revealed in God’s on-going creative presence.
College Counseling II
Senior level College Counseling provides an opportunity for students to prepare for the TOEFL exam as well as prepare college and scholarship applications during the first semester. During the second semester, the focus is on financial aid – the FAFSA and scholarship applications – as well as preparing students for adjustments of college life such as study skills, expectations of professors, money management, how to pick courses, cultural stereotypes, etc.
Senior Survey Project
The SSP is a one semester course during which students learn skills needed for preparing a research paper: identification of social issues, survey development, data collection, analysis of results, and presentation of their conclusions. For this project senior students conduct research on issues specific to their islands. Recognizing that each island-nation is unique and has its own particular characteristics, the students focus on their own island-nations. The SSP links students to their communities as did the CCSP.
Developmental Studies (elective)
At Senior level, Developmental Studies aims to enable students to examine the changes that affect people’s quality of life, especially those issues relevant to developing countries. They will learn to appreciate that there are many aspects of development – not just economic issues – and that these aspects are all inter-related. They will gain experience in analyzing and evaluating strategies for development at local, national and international levels and develop a range of knowledge, skills and attitudes that will enable them to participate more willingly and effectively in the development of the society in which they live.
This elective course is designed to help students adquire business skills and knowledge that can be applicable and useful in their further education in college or future careers. They will also become proficient with basic accounting concepts, with accounting cycles, and able to create accurate financial statements of a service type business.
The aim of this course is to introduce students to the basics of music through listening, playing, singing, and writing songs. This course will also introduce different styles of music to the students. Practical activities are heavily emphasized in this class. Making music and experiencing it directly is much more beneficial than merely reading or listening about it. Students will learn how to use music as a medium of communication.
Environmental Science (elective)
This course in environmental science will be a survey course. Its aim is to give students an understanding of the basic principles of ecology, including ecosystem patterns and
dynamics, evolutionary ecology, and population dynamics. Additionally, students will be introduced to current issues in environmental studies including climate change, habitat degradation, species extinction, and emerging diseases. The aim of the course is to give students a basic understanding of the diverse life systems on earth, as well as the
tools necessary to view environmental issues and solutions from a local, national, and global scale.