Seeing tenth-grade biology on the class schedule of Seton Keough High School sophomore Summer James may not stand out as odd.

Seeing a course in biomedical science, on the other hand, might.

But for Summer, who plays lacrosse at the school, doubling up in science is all about preparing herself for college, where she wants to study sports medicine, she said.

"We're learning about the heart this unit, and the main concept is to learn about how blood pumps through the heart," Summer said of her biomedical course. "Because I'm doing this right now, I think it will give me a push to keep learning about it before I learn about it in college."

While many high school science programs have long been designed around a simple combination of life science, biology, chemistry and physics -- with perhaps a few electives for seniors -- the Catholic all-girls school on Caton Avenue has chosen to open the playing field with two new electives for underclassmen: biomedical science and engineering design.

The new courses were made possible with the financial help of a few generous partners and the curricular guidance of the national nonprofit educational program Project Lead the Way, which helps train teachers in the two elective fields.

The project's ultimate goal is to interest more students, especially girls, in the sciences at a younger age -- a goal shared at Seton Keough.

The school's version of the program, called Women in Science, stresses the importance of considering the sciences a viable career field for the girls, said biomedical teacher Rebecca Emrich.

"The science in this course is much more in tune with what they'll be experiencing in college," she said. "It captures the excitement and the imagination of the students."

Working with nearby St. Agnes Hospital, the Marion I. & Henry J. Knott Foundation and the France-Merrick Foundation, the school was able to raise enough money to completely renovate two large classrooms into modern, technologically equipped science laboratories before the start of this school year.

The rooms are full of new technology, including wireless Internet, smart boards that allow written information to be transferred directly into computers, 22 new laptops, new subject-based software and a complete seating redesign with two-student tables and larger, stool-height study tables for work with microscopes and other equipment.

"It's so much better than carrying around a textbook all day," said James, noting that her biomedical coursework is done mostly on computers.

The presence of the new equipment raises the comfort level of the students, said sophomore Taylor Hrinkevich.

"It's kind of our generation, so we're good at it," she said.

This year, only freshmen and sophomores could apply for a spot in the two elective courses. Two classes of each are taught.

A group of underclassmen from the nearby Catholic all-boys Cardinal Gibbons School are also taking an engineering course in Seton Keough's lab -- though the course is boys only.

As students progress, they will continue with the Project Lead the Way-inspired curriculum through their senior year, including a summer seminar between their junior and senior years, said Sister Patricia Anne Bossle, Seton Keough's president.

To teach the material, Emrich took a two-week training course this summer at Stevenson University, while engineering teacher Bill Mason took a two-week engineering training course at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

More teachers will be trained to teach the upper grade levels as those courses are added, Bossle said.

So far this year, the students in the engineering course have outlined the evolutionary history of engineered products, from hair brushes to cell phones, said Mason, a retired naval officer with an engineering background.

The students have also begun working on technical sketching, and will move into using Autodesk Inventor 2010 software to tackle more technical engineering soon.

The software is "exactly the same software that engineers are using worldwide as we speak," Mason said.

"This is the latest and greatest draft-design tool," he said.

One of Mason's goals with the course, he said, is to "destroy the stereotype that engineering is a man's world."

In the biomedical course, students have been studying the imagined mystery of how an individual woman died, analyzing her body's systems and studying her health issues -- which Emrich said were many.

"It's really interesting," said Hannah Tavik, a freshman from Glen Burnie. "We get to learn new systems in the body and how they work."

The students will also prepare reports on 40 careers in the biomedical field, Emrich said.

Later this semester, the students will have a chance to go to St. Agnes Hospital and observe real biomedical professionals in action, a perk of the school's partnership with the hospital, Emrich said.

"I am very excited for all the possibilities," she added.

According to Alexis Apitsch, a freshman and a recent graduate of Our Lady of Victory, in Arbutus, the program has been great so far.

"I just love it. It's just so much fun," she said. "I'm learning so many new things in the field I want to study in."

"I want to study in curing cancers."

According to Bossle, supporting those sorts of ambitions is what the program is all about.

And in turn, students will approach college with a stronger base of experience in viable scientific fields, Bossle said.

"It should open the door for a lot of scholarships for students who do well in this," she said.

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