How have different peoples and cultures sought answers to life’s biggest questions throughout history? In this class, students will journey through the world’s major religions and explore the various philosophical ideas that have shaped human understanding of existence, morality, and communal life. The first semester of this course will cover the world’s major religions through studying their foundational beliefs and practices as well as reading excerpts from their sacred texts. Students will get a basic understanding of the timeline of religions in world history. The focus will be academic, seeking to grow in understanding and respect of various belief systems. The second semester will introduce students to the foundational concepts and debates of philosophy. Through a combination of reading, videos, discussion, written reflection, and oration, students will grow in critical thinking skills, practice argumentation and rhetoric, and tackle age-old questions and dilemmas as well as current hot topic debates in logic, metaphysics, ethics, and epistemology. Students will have up to 3 hours of homework a week and must use Google Classroom for homework and teacher communication. This class will count as a full humanities or history elective for high school credit. Teacher: Kendra Andrus