Concerning the future of Arkansas!

Many AGS students will eventually live, work, and raise families in Arkansas. Some will become our state’s future leaders. This course will explicitly present to these future leaders the challenges and opportunities facing the Natural State as it moves forward in the 21^st century.

Arkansas is undergoing significant change. This course will encourage AGS students to identify current conditions and future trends, and imagine creative ways to grow and improve Arkansas while maintaining its distinctive culture, preserving economic sustainability, and providing livable communities.  Participants will identify Arkansas’ natural resources, study the state’s demographics and geography, recognize regions of population and economic growth, and analyze how the state portrays itself and publicizes its best qualities through media campaigns and advertising. 

Students will engage in activities such as designing a new state park, creating a city plan to showcase recreational activities, use available GIS (geographic information systems) data to forecast population and demographic trends, and propose economic models to enhance tourism and industry.  Guest speakers will be invited to offer their expertise both in person and in online discussion forums.

Drama is one of ours oldest art forms, yet it continually evolves in order to meet the needs of our changing society. Students will learn to analyze, create, and perform dramatic works that speak to the audiences of today. They will study classic dramatic texts, practice performance skills, write scripts and gain exposure to a wide variety of roles in theatre-makining, including acting, directing,playwriting, and set design. Students will also have the opportunity to experiment with digital film, audio, and editing, and examine the difference between performance for traditional stage and screen and performance for new hand-held devices like smart phones and tablets. 

English/Language Arts will offer students opportunities to explore the art of rhetoric as writers and readers of classic literature, and as consumers of film and digital communication. Students will balance reading and discussing published works with composing their own writing in order to make their voices heard. Students will examine and compose in traditional genres such as poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. They will also explore creative writing in areas related to new media, such as television writing, screenplay writing, social media writing, and writing for video games. 

The Instrumental Music curriculum will focus on traditional and modern composition, performance, and recording techniques. Instrumentalists will have the opportunity to perform individually and in groups, and gain exposure to a new technologies used to enhance musics from a wide variety of style periods and genres. 

Students in Mathematics will explore mathematical ideas and applications in a variety of areas such as biological science, cryptography, aerospace engineering, and complex numbers. Students will consider the theoretical and philosophical implications of mathematical science, and math's fundamental impact on the broad array of modern technologies. They will also be exposed to the aesthetics of math through the study of things like Julia sets, Mandelbrot sets, conformal maps, and the Koch Snowflake. 

Students will study a wide range of recent breakthroughs in the natural sciences. They will conduct experiments and have opportunities for hands-on experiences in fields such as physics, chemistry, geology, genetics, medicine, wildlife management,etc. They will also discuss the ethical and social implications of the latest technological breakthroughs in the sciences. 

Students in the social sciences will examine what it is to be human through the study of anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, history, and other fields. They will learn how the long and broad arcs of technological development have affected the way people communicate, evolve culturally, and resolve conflict. They will also learn how the latest technologies and methodologies have changed the way the social scientists persue their craft. 

The Visual Arts program will give students the opportunity to inform and expand their creative vision while exploring new techniques. The goal of the program is to blend traditional fine art media and craft with emerging technology. Students will investigate correlations between the physical art object or process and the digital world. For example, student's might combine traditional sculpture techniques with 3D printing and motion capture to create and animate characters. Students will participate in discussions, critique their own work and that of their peers, and examine the art world in the larger historical and cultural context.