Science Department

Welcome to the home page of the ConVal High School science department. On this page, you can find information on the science department, including honors won, laboratory procedures, our position on academic honesty, and a listing of current staff members.

Department Staff

Academic Honors

Members of the Science Dept also mentor co curricular activities and have achieved academic honors. A list of advisors and achievements is listed below.

Activities

• Ocean Bowl – Jon Manley, Ken Cloutier: National Champions 2007; Finalists 1999, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006
• Science Bowl – Molly Eppig: NE Regional Champions 2007
• Salamander Crossing Guards - Amy Biddle, Robin Croteau: 2007
• Envirothon – Amy Biddle, Steve Bartsch: 2007
• Astronomy Bowl – Molly Eppig: second place, 2007
• Recycling Club – Dana Wood: 2007

Honors

• Amy Biddle: Awarded NH Chemistry Teacher of the Year by the NE Institute of Chemists (2007), chosen for the “Teacher as Research Associates Real Sciences Academy,” a 3 year program (2007 - 2009)

Back to Top

Laboratory Procedures

The Science Dept believes that learning and understanding our topics is best accomplished by working in hands on, manipulative situations. Therefore we have the following philosophy concerning laboratory work and safety procedures.

• Safety is extremely important in the laboratory. Our overriding concern is the safety and health of our students.
• Before we begin labs, a safety unit will be taught and a passing grade on a safety quiz is needed before lab work can be done.
• Students who do not follow the lab safety rules will be given a zero for the lab. If lab safety rules are broken more than once, the student will be given a zero, a writing assignment for that lab AND the student will not be allowed to participate in another lab exercise until after a parent conference requested by the student.

Back to Top

Position on Academic Honesty

In the pursuit of knowledge in Science, cooperation is essential to the advance of research. However, this requires independent thought and work on the individual’s part. Students who attempt to receive credit for work which not their own are depriving themselves of an opportunity to learn and progress intellectually.

Our policy requires the work on all individual assignments to be done independently. If the assignment is copied or too similar to another’s student’s work, a zero for that assignment will be given to all parties involved.

While labs often involve a cooperative effort during data collection, the entire laboratory report must be completed in your own words and you must perform your own calculations. The data will be the same as your partner(s), but it is your own responsibility to create a data chart and to write all parts of the laboratory report independently. This will hold true for all science classes unless an individual teacher indicates that a certain part or parts of an exercise may be shared.

Back to Top