RHS Academic Decathlon
The Academic Decathlon competition is composed of ten events. Each decathlete takes seven multiple choice tests in the subjects of Art, Economics, Music, Language and Literature, Mathematics, Science, and Social Science. In addition, each decathlete gives a planned 4-minute speech and a 2-minute impromptu speech, participates in a 7-minute interview, and is given 50 minutes to write an expository essay.
An Academic Decathlon team may have up to nine members. The team is divided into three categories with up to three students per category. The three categories are based upon a student’s GPA in academic subjects. The three categories are:
- Honors GPA : 4.00 - 3.80
- Scholastic GPA : 3.79 - 3.20
- Varsity GPA - 3.20 - 0.00
The U.S. Academic Decathlon® is excited to announce that the overall curricular theme for 2024–2025 will be Our Changing Climate. Following is some general information on the topics in each of the subject areas.
- Art: The art curriculum will offer an introduction to environmental and environmentalist art.
- Science: The science topic will be an introduction to environmental science.
- Social Science: The social science topic will be climate change in the past and present.
- Literature: The literature curriculum will present an introduction to environmental literature and will include critical reading, one long work of literature, and selected shorter works. The long work of literature will be Solar Storms by Linda Hogan.
- Mathematics: The mathematics curriculum will provide an overview of permutations, combinations, algebra and statistics.
- Music: The music curriculum will focus on the topic of music and the natural world.
- Economics: The economics curriculum will cover fundamental economic concepts, microeconomics, and macroeconomics and will include a thematic section on the economics of climate change.
The Academic Decathlon team, as well as all other academic competition teams, should be viewed as just that – a team. And as such, success is based upon hard work and a time commitment to the program. Because of this, it is also one of the most rewarding and enjoyable experiences one can undertake while in high school.
