El Capitan High School is a public high school in Lakeside, California, United States, a census-designated place in San Diego, and serves students in grades nine through twelve. Opened in 1959, El Capitan is the fifth of twelve high schools to be constructed in the Grossmont Union High School District. El Capitan High School is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.AgricultureEl Capitan High School is the only high school in the Grossmont district to include an agriculture program.[https://sites.google.com/a/guhsd.net/el-capitan-high-school-global-language-and-leadership-program/ Global Language and Leadership Program]The GLLP was established as a continuum for language immersion students, who have been enrolled in Spanish or Chinese since kindergarten. Students in the program take two years of advanced language per year for the duration for their high school journey. Many are on the triliteracy pathway; "majoring" in Spanish and "minoring" in Chinese. The GLLP promotes global competency for all students and encourages international exchanges and communication.[http://cbm.msoe.edu/about/UCSD.html SMART Team]What do you get when you combine enthusiastic high school teachers and their students, scientists excited about their research, and rapid prototyping technology? SMART and MAPS Teams!El Capitan High School's SMART/MAPS team was established in 2008. In these multi-faceted programs, students develop teamwork as they delve into the molecular world, explore science as a process and not just a collection of facts, and work to understand and model the structure-function relationship of a protein story. Trained in computer visualization software, the teams design and build 3D models of their proteins to help tell their specific research story. Finally, they create oral presentations explaining their work to a lay audience and a poster to present to a scientific audience. The National SMART Team program is available to teams outside of the Milwaukee-metro area, including Wisconsin and across the U.S. The newest addition to this program is MAPS, this program allows teams of students and teachers to model the unique structure-function relationships of a protein and develop a research question to explore. With additional support from their high school teachers, who themselves received special training, and SMART/MAPS program coordinator, students explore the molecular world and experience science as a process and not just a collection of facts.
