Palo Alto High School students can look forward to a slightly longer course catalog this year with the introduction of two new courses: Marine Biology and Escape Literature.

The science department will debut its Marine Biology course next school year, which is slated to be taught by current biology teacher Erik Olah. The class will be offered to juniors and seniors who have completed ninth grade biology and at least one other physical science, such as chemistry or physics.

According to Olah, Marine Biology will feature a wide array of topics, though the course will primarily focus on the life science aspects of the ocean.

“We will be talking mostly about living things in the ocean,” Olah said. “We’ve broken the course up into sections: marine life, the structure of the ocean, algae – it’s mostly a life science. We’ll talk a little bit about physical science, such as waves and their impact, but it’s definitely a biology course, not much oceanography.”

In addition to the classroom curriculum, students can expect to have a handful of field trips sprinkled throughout the year.

“We’re going to have a couple field trips built into the course and there will be projects every semester, [so] it should fun,” Olah said. “To me, it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Olah, who majored in marine biology during college, arrived at Paly two years ago under the direction of then instructional supervisor Katherine Lawrence. Among the hopes she had outlined for Olah was the creation of a new marine biology class.

“When Katherine Lawrence hired me, one of the things she wanted me to do was to start a Marine Biology course as a life science alternative for students who may not want to take an AP,” Olah said. “It’s something I’ve always found interesting; I spent all four years in college studying it, so it’s my passion.”

On the opposite end of campus, students who choose to take an English elective will have the option of signing up for Escape Literature next year. The course is a semester-long, unweighted English elective for juniors and seniors, comparable to Film Composition and Literature. Although still in its developmental stages, English teacher Erin Angell noted that the class will feature a mix of science-fiction and mystery.

“Right now we’re in the stage of getting texts approved and building a core reading list,” Angell said. “What we’ve been talking about is having a class that has a balance of things: literary analysis, historical context, creative writing, short stories in addition to novels – having [a] general approach to an English class.”

Angell explained that the concept of a science-fiction course at Paly isn’t new, but only recently got off the ground.

“This notion of science-fiction [at Paly] has been around for a while,” Angell said. “[English teachers] Trinity Klein and Paul Kandell had talked about a science-fiction class with an apocalyptic and Utopian approach to literature. But for whatever reasons, to really get going on it [a new course] takes a lot of time. Then somebody happened to mention that they already have the class [Escape Literature] approved at Gunn, [which] really made it a lot easier.”

With Escape Literature already available at Gunn, the Paly English department saw no reason why Paly shouldn’t offer the course as well.

“Since it was already approved in the district, you just have to write up a course description, pop it in the [course catalog] and see if people want to take it,” Angell said. “The I.S. at Gunn was very helpful, as was the teacher who currently teaches it. They sent over all the documentation from the U.C. approval, and the teacher and I will be meeting to see what he has done, and what we can apply here [at Paly].”

Ultimately, Angell views the introduction of more course choices as a benefit to every student at Paly.

“It’s an awesome opportunity for students to select a course that might be in line with their interests, or to be exposed to a type of subject matter that is not covered traditionally in the English classroom,” Angell said. “I think any opportunity a student has to follow their interests and select a class that seems interesting to them and have some ability to do that for course selection is always a good thing.”