About Compass

Project-Based Curriculum

At the Compass School, environmental sustainability and social responsibility are two "lenses" through which the school's curriculum is viewed. Although learning at the school is not limited exclusively to these issues, the Compass School believes that these two foci provide a universal context by which students may best understand their learning experiences. During the 21st century, every student will grapple increasingly with issues of environmental sustainability and social responsibility; a Compass School education will prepare them for these changing times.

The Compass School believes that learning can be more effective and satisfying if it takes place within an environment that provides a genuine, relevant context in which learning experiences can occur. It is also our belief that the issues of environmental sustainability and social responsibility will provide curricular material through which various disciplines can be connected, so that students can learn to make substantive connections among those disciplines. In this way, fragmented learning may be reduced and a greater depth of learning may be achieved by providing a consistent, coherent framework for learning that is relevant to students' lives.

The School ensures that all students are proficient in basic competencies such as numeracy and literacy, and it works to ensure that all students meet or exceed national, state, and professional standards delineated for various disciplines. We acknowledge that students may reach the final goal of meeting standards in a variety of ways, and therefore believe that designing curricula according to a comprehensive model of environmental sustainability and social responsibility provides an educational experience superior to one presented in a traditional "standards based" educational model.

The curriculum at Compass is fundamentally and primarily student centered, and the developmental needs of each student, as individuals embedded in social and environmental contexts, guides the evolution of the school's curriculum. We believe that a well-designed curriculum provides opportunities for students to develop their physical, emotional, cognitive, social, and reflective abilities, and therefore presents learning opportunities that enable students to develop all those aspects of their lives.

Click here to see a project-based sample unit.