The PEAK summer programs introduce high school juniors and seniors to a community of learners and explorers. Students will spend some hours each day studying the Great Books, some hours in outdoor recreation unique to our college, and some time resting in prayer and the sacraments. Outdoor activities include horseback riding, rock-climbing, rappelling, and a 4-day backpacking trip. All ability levels are welcome!

The PEAK summer programs introduce high school juniors and seniors to a community of learners and explorers. Students will spend some hours each day studying the Great Books, some hours in outdoor recreation unique to our college, and some time resting in prayer and the sacraments. Outdoor activities include horseback riding, rock-climbing, rappelling, and a 4-day backpacking trip. All ability levels are welcome!

Wyoming Catholic College invites you to join thirty other high school seniors for a week of intellectual and personal discovery at our PEAK Ranch on August 1st-8th. What will you find? You’ve had questions – big questions – about why reality is the way it is. Our faculty-led seminars will guide you to solid answers; drawing from the riches of WCC’s theology and humanities curriculum, we’ll spend the week studying Mary the Mother of God and the Feast of her Assumption.

This course covers material normally included in a year-long introductory course in high school chemistry, which is usually a prerequisite for AP or IB Chemistry. It explores physical and chemical properties, the periodic table, the atom and atomic theory, chemical bonding, chemical reactions and stoichiometry, solutions, thermodynamics, acids and bases, kinetics, equilibrium, and some organic chemistry.

Saul Bellow said, "A writer is a reader moved to emulation.” This course draws inspiration from the published works, journals, and drafts of writers such as Alice Munro, John Updike, Rita Dove, and Li-Young Lee. You and your classmates will learn to read like writers by examining a range of content, styles, structures, and techniques. You’ll debate the distinction between the realistic and the fantastic in Gabriel García Márquez’s I Sell My Dreams and the value of imagery in Elizabeth Bishop’s The Fish.

This course introduces students to three major areas of the computer science discipline: theory and algorithms, hardware systems, and software systems. In the theoretical component of the course, you and your classmates will learn about algorithms, Boolean algebra, binary mathematics, and theory of computation.

How much are you willing to pay for ice cream on a hot summer day? Who is responsible for the cost of pollution? Is there such a thing as a perfectly competitive market? Microeconomics provides insights into these questions as it examines how individual buyers and sellers make decisions about allocating limited resources. This course analyzes microeconomic theory and considers it in the context of today’s economic climate.

This course is an introduction to human biology and the science of medicine, drawing upon basic biological and chemical concepts to explore the intricate anatomical and physiological mechanisms underlying normal human function. You and your classmates will investigate homeostatic imbalances that cause diseases, learn about diabetes and gain an in-depth understanding of the endocrine system, the pancreas, the metabolism of sugar, and the biochemical effects of glucose.

From artificial sweeteners in diet soft drinks to batteries in electric cars, chemistry is integral to our everyday lives. This course investigates chemistry as a means to solving real-world problems. You’ll learn about the periodic table, atomic structure, and chemical bonding. In the lab, you and your classmates will investigate solubility, test water samples to identify potential toxins, and participate in a simulation of a town hall meeting to debate how to preserve a community water source.

This course explores conundrums and analyzes a range of mathematical and philosophical paradoxes. You’ll consider Zeno’s paradoxes of space and time, such as The Racecourse, in which Achilles continually travels half of the remaining distance and seemingly can never reach the finish line. To address these types of paradoxes, you’ll be introduced to the concepts of infinite series and limits, and then explore paradoxes of set theory, self-reference, and truth, and paradoxes of probability and inductive reasoning.

From microscopic investigation to the basics of veterinary medicine, this course explores the principles of comparative animal anatomy, physiology, and genetics. You will learn key concepts of zoology such as characteristics of the animal cell, heredity, taxonomy, and evolution, including natural selection. Through laboratory dissections of animals ranging from perch to rats, you’ll explore the different systems of each species—digestive, nervous, immune, endocrine, reproductive, and circulatory.

Cryptology is the study of the codes and ciphers used to create secret writing. This math course explores many early techniques in cryptology, such as cipher wheels, the Caesar shift, polyalphabetic substitution, and the Vigenère cipher, as well as modern techniques like RSA public key cryptography. You and your classmates will learn how data transmitted by computers can be secured with digital encryption, and how the vulnerabilities of each encryption system enable hackers to attack and decrypt messages using techniques such as frequency analysis and cribbing.

This course is an introduction to human biology and the science of medicine, drawing upon basic biological and chemical concepts to explore the intricate anatomical and physiological mechanisms underlying normal human function. You and your classmates will investigate homeostatic imbalances that cause diseases, learn about diabetes and gain an in-depth understanding of the endocrine system, the pancreas, the metabolism of sugar, and the biochemical effects of glucose.

This course explores conundrums and analyzes a range of mathematical and philosophical paradoxes. You’ll consider Zeno’s paradoxes of space and time, such as The Racecourse, in which Achilles continually travels half of the remaining distance and seemingly can never reach the finish line. To address these types of paradoxes, you’ll be introduced to the concepts of infinite series and limits, and then explore paradoxes of set theory, self-reference, and truth, and paradoxes of probability and inductive reasoning.

Cryptology is the study of the codes and ciphers used to create secret writing. This math course explores many early techniques in cryptology, such as cipher wheels, the Caesar shift, polyalphabetic substitution, and the Vigenère cipher, as well as modern techniques like RSA public key cryptography. You and your classmates will learn how data transmitted by computers can be secured with digital encryption, and how the vulnerabilities of each encryption system enable hackers to attack and decrypt messages using techniques such as frequency analysis and cribbing.