TEACHER of SCIENCE and FINANCE
Thomas Warfel
Mr. Thomas Warfel, science and finance teacher at Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School, grew up in the San Francisco Bay area of California. He earned a B.A. in Geology from Occidental College in 2016 and a M.S. in Earth Science from Syracuse University in 2018. His undergraduate thesis was focused on using geologic dating techniques to constrain the ages of volcanic deposits and human fossils in Ethiopia. For his masters thesis, he used thermochronology to better understand the tectonic history of the Denali Fault in Alaska.
My Courses
Financial Literacy
In this course, students will analyze real-world financial decisions that they can expect to make after graduating high school. They will learn how to use debt (credit cards, student loans, mortgages), some of the pros and cons of different career paths (trade school, college, graduate school), how to create a budget, the basics of investment philosophy (stocks, bonds, index funds), and how to plan for retirement (401K, IRA, HSA, social security).
Chemistry
In this course, students will learn about the structure of the atom, the patterns of the periodic table, the nature of atomic bonds (covalent and ionic), and the dynamics of chemical reactions. They will see real world examples of each of these phenomena through experimentation and they will learn how to interpret scientific data.