Last fall, 16 Upper School students stepped into a new kind of classroom. While Cary Academy has long championed experiential learning and flexible environments, this was something more—an ambitious, co-developed and co-taught interdisciplinary pilot rooted in curiosity, collaboration, and connection. There were no bells dictating subject shifts, no rigid divisions between disciplines. Instead, students found themselves in a shared space where ideas flowed freely and learning was driven by inquiry and authentic connections across subject areas.
The year-long program was sparked by a deceptively simple idea: what sustains us? Not sustainability in the buzzword sense, but a broad exploration of what supports life, systems, and meaning—from ecosystems to cultures, from the personal to the planetary.
“If you’re a forest, what has to happen to sustain you? If you’re microbes in a gut, what sustains you to sustain something else?” explained science teacher Heidi Maloy. “Each of us brought our own take to the question, and that’s how we built the curriculum.”
The framework
The theme offered rich, expansive potential, inviting outside-the-box (er, discipline) thinking. Heidi Maloy (Upper School science), Craig Lazarski (Upper School math and data science), Allyson Buie (Upper School English), and Bill Velto (Upper School social science) came together to design and teach the course—building the framework during last year’s Discovery Term and continuing to develop curriculum in real time throughout the year.
“This program offered a completely blank canvas—entirely different from a single class,” reflected Velto. “Combining disciplines that people don’t normally think of as going together inspired us to get creative—to bounce around ideas we might never have considered in a traditional setting.”
Planning began with psychiatrist William Glasser’s Choice Theory, which proposes that all behavior is a choice made to satisfy five fundamental needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun. These needs formed the structural backbone of a cohesive curriculum, each anchoring a multi-week unit weaving together scientific inquiry, literary analysis, historical perspective—and, notably, data science, which served as a connective thread across all areas of study. That innovative integration—giving students hands-on experience using data to ask better questions, model complex systems, and tell meaningful stories—earned Cary Academy recognition by North Carolina State University as a North Carolina Data Science and AI Academy School of Distinction.
Starting with Survival
The interdisciplinary model came to life in the very first “survival” unit that kicked off the year. Students read Andy Weir’s The Martian, a story of an astronaut stranded on Mars who survives through ingenuity, scientific reasoning, and hope. “He’s the only person there,” said Buie. “If he wants to stay alive, he has to grow food. He has to make water. He has to think through every step to meet his needs. It was a great jumping off point.”
From there, the disciplines branched and interwove. In science, students designed and conducted potato-growing experiments, adapting The Martian’s strategy for Earth-based growing conditions. They investigated soil types, sunlight, and salinity, devising experiments from scratch and using research to inform their methods. In data science, they modeled their experimental results, learning how to code simulations and interpret real-world variables. In history, they explored the legacy of the Irish Potato Famine and the Bengal Famine of 1943 and the human implications of food scarcity. English grounded the experience in storytelling and analysis—challenging students to articulate not just what happened, but why it mattered. “It was all connected from the beginning,” said Maloy.
Finding Connection
In the “love and belonging” unit, students read Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart, a memoir centered on food, grief, and cultural identity. They cooked Korean recipes, wrote personal food narratives, and analyzed how memory and emotion are encoded in sensory experiences. “It was about how culture is passed down—and how we carry that with us,” said Buie. In science and data, they explored the microbiome and fermentation, even experimenting with kimchi. In cultural geography, they mapped immigrant food communities and examined how place shapes tradition. The result: a profoundly personal and multifaceted understanding of how love and belonging sustain both individuals and cultures.
Other units unfolded throughout the year. Students mapped food deserts and tested water quality to explore systems of access and inequality. They conducted independent research and self-directed experiments that reflected students’ growing agency and ownership of learning. A final celebratory arc embraced curiosity and play, capping the course with creativity and joy.
Making Meaning
A key innovation was the program’s integration of data science, not as a standalone class, but as a thread running throughout.
“Prior to this program, there were limited opportunities for students to experience data science before 11th or 12th grade,” said Martina Greene, Dean of Faculty. “So the idea was, could we introduce it earlier, and across disciplines?”
“I always preach to my students: data is everywhere,” added Lazarski. “Well, this year, I had to prove it.”
And prove it he did. From mapping food deserts in geography to modeling plant growth in science to tracing characters’ emotional arcs in English, students weren’t just learning about data; they were using it to uncover meaning. It wasn’t just about graphs and statistics, but about understanding the world differently—through patterns, stories, and human impact.
“They figured out that for science, the claims, evidence, and reasoning are pretty much the same as crafting a thesis and using textual evidence in English,” added Buie. “That connection clicked for them.”
Ethan Kim, ’27, described how this changed his perspective. “I used to just take what someone wanted me to get from a graph at face value—but now I look at the scaling, the axes, what’s being shown or left out. I can draw my own conclusions.”
Sophia Curtis, ’27, agreed. “Now I can tell a story with data—and that’s only going to get more important.”
Seeing differently
Those interdisciplinary connections didn’t just deepen academic understanding—they humanized it.
For Austin Balsey, ’28, engaging with data meant more than crunching numbers; it became a gateway to empathy. “When I looked at data this year, I started thinking about how many people each point might represent—and what their stories might be. It helped me feel more empathy for the people behind the numbers.” He began to see the stories behind the statistics—real people, real consequences—and his approach to learning shifted from analytical to deeply personal.
Sophia Curtis echoed that transformation. “This class helped me realize that no subject really stands alone—they all connect. We were constantly moving between disciplines, and that made the learning feel more real and useful. That kind of skill—being able to transfer ideas and communicate across different areas—is something I know will matter beyond school.”
Head of School Mike Ehrhardt wasn’t surprised. “It doesn’t surprise me at all that students would be blown away by how statistics and numbers can be applied to understand the world differently,” he said. “Those are the kinds of moments this program creates—when something you thought belonged in a silo shows up somewhere unexpected.”
Room to Explore
Designing a new schedule wasn’t just about time—it was about values. By prioritizing flexibility and depth, the structure reflected the spirit of the course itself.
The program’s structure—with students spending their mornings in the program with traditional classes in the afternoon—enabled deep dives, hands-on learning, and flexible pacing. “There were times when English didn’t happen for a week—and that was okay,” said Buie. “We prioritized depth over coverage. We could follow the questions students were asking.”
That curiosity led outside the classroom—even all the way to Savannah, Georgia.
During the “love and belonging” unit, students traveled to explore the culture and history of the Gullah Geechee people—descendants of enslaved Africans in the Southeast. Known for preserving strong African cultural roots, the Gullah Geechee have maintained a unique heritage of resilience, land stewardship, and craft.
In Savannah, students studied original ship manifests—primary source data sets documenting enslaved individuals transported to the region. They walked the same streets referenced in those records, connecting numbers to the human lives behind them. They also learned to weave sweetgrass baskets—a West African art form passed down through generations.
“We learned things we couldn’t have in a textbook,” recalled Balsey. “I remember learning why doors were painted red—it was a way for freed Black families to mark ownership. That stuck with me.”
Building Together
The course’s extended format and shared academic space created more than interdisciplinary synergy—it fostered a tight-knit community where students felt empowered to experiment, take risks, and grow.
“It felt different from other classes,” said Sanya Patel, ’28. “We weren’t just classmates—we were learning how to navigate things together, and we really bonded as a group. You could try something and mess up, and everyone would still support you. That made it easier to step outside your comfort zone.”
That comfort with risk was crucial in a course where students weren’t handed step-by-step instructions—they designed their own experiments, pursued individual lines of inquiry, and revised as they learned.
“There was always something new to think about,” said Balsey. “Where my friends were doing prescribed experiments, we were designing them. That freedom taught me how to ask better questions and improve.”
It was, as Curtis put it, an education in transfer and application. “In reality, nothing is ever just one subject. The course helped me see how disciplines reinforce one another—how what you learn in bio can help you write your English essay, or how a history lesson can support a debate.”
What Endures
According to Ehrhardt, that sense of connection is the point. “Interdisciplinary learning helps make what you’re studying feel more relevant,” he said. “You’re not just seeing content—you’re seeing how it applies and impacts the world around you. That’s what prepares students for the future.”
And it wasn’t just students who grew. Teachers experienced their own transformations through the collaborative process. The collaboration didn’t just deepen instructional practice—it reenergized it. Teachers, too, found themselves discovering, adapting, and learning in real time.
“I usually teach alone, but suddenly, I was seeing how Bill frames a conversation, or how Alyson draws out meaning in a text. It changes how I teach my own classes, even outside this program,” said Lazarski.
“We didn’t have a script—we were building it alongside our students,” added Velto. “It was a model of the same kind of agency we want our students to develop.”
Thanks to strong interest and powerful outcomes, What Sustains Us will continue as a dedicated ninth-grade program. A new tenth-grade course, Humanity in the Age of AI, launches this fall.
“We hoped this would be meaningful,” Greene reflected. “We just didn’t know how meaningful it would be—for everyone involved.”
In Austin Balsey’s words: “I’ve never had a class make me feel like I’ve grown this much—not just in school, but as a person. It changed how I see the world.”