2022 Team
Buchanan Academic Decathlon Adviser: Alyssa Lomier
[email protected]If you are Interested, have questions or would like more information See Ms. Lomier in Student Services.
What is Academic Decathlon?The California Academic Decathlon is a statewide non-profit organization that promotes an educational experience providing a format in which teams of nine high school students compete in academic events. All California public and private high schools are eligible to compete. The Academic Decathlon embodies a partnership of business, foundations and individuals in cooperation with the education community and county offices of education.
There are an estimated 500 high schools, approximately 13,000 students who participate annually in Academic Decathlon in California. The makeup of each of the nine member teams must include three A students, three B students, and three C or below students.
Academic Decathletes take 30 minute multiple choice tests in the subjects of Art, Economics, Music, Language and Literature, Mathematics, Science, and Social Science. In addition, each team member gives a planned 4 minute Speech and a 2 minute impromptu Speech, participates in a 7 minute Interview, and has 50 minutes to write an Expository Essay.
The Super Quiz Relay, the final event, is open to the public and features questions from subject matters including Art, Economics, Music, Language and Literature, Science, and Social Science.
The Academic Decathlon season involves 4 rounds of competition. The United States Academic Decathlon publishes the curriculum in the Spring. Round 1 is a non-scoring scrimmage typically held in November. Round 2 consists of regional competitions held on the first Saturday in February. The winners of Round 2 plus a limited number of invited teams then compete in Round 3 which is the State Championship held in mid-March in Sacramento. As a result of the State Championship, California sends the top two winners onto Round 4, the USAD Nationals held in late April.
Since national competition began in 1982, California has performed in a superior manner, winning 20 national titles and posting 12 second place finishes.
United States Academic Decathlon Curricular Topics for 2022-2023
The U.S. Academic Decathlon® is excited to announce that the overall curricular theme for 2022–2023 will be The American Revolution and the New Nation. Following is some general information on the topics in each of the subject areas.
- ART: The art curriculum will explore early American art.
- ECONOMICS: The economics curriculum will cover fundamental economic concepts, microeconomics, and macroeconomics and will include a thematic section on colonial and early American economic history.
- LITERATURE: The literature curriculum will include critical reading, one long work of literature, and selected shorter works. The long work of literature will be Wieland; or, The Transformation, An American Tale by Charles Brockden Brown.
- MATHEMATICS: The mathematics curriculum will cover algebra and trigonometry.*
- MUSIC: The music curriculum will present an introduction to early American music.
- SCIENCE: The science topic will be an introduction to chemistry and will include brief discussions of significant advancements made in chemistry during the last half of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century.**
- SOCIAL SCIENCE: The social science topic will be the American Revolution and the founding of the United States of America.
The full subject area outlines will be posted on the U.S. Academic Decathlon website <
www.usad.org> on May 1 and will be published in the U.S. Academic Decathlon Study Guide, which will be available on May 15.
* The 2022–23 mathematics curriculum and materials will be the same as were used for the 2019–20 U.S. Academic Decathlon. **
The 2022–23 Science Resource Guide and Notebook Divider contain much of the same content as the Science Resource Guide, Research Guide, and Notebook Divider from 2009–10 but include some additional material.