What You'll Learn

You’ll always learn something different. Each year, the Academic Decathlon^® selects a new theme for teams all over the country to explore. The theme shapes an entire course of studies—and brings it all together. The more years you participate in Academic Decathlon, the more themes you’ll master. And, since our curriculum team develops these themes with special attention to national content standards, you’ll find you’re becoming not just a more knowledgeable Academic Decathlete, but a stronger all-around student.

The theme for the 2023-2024 Academic Decathlon is Technology and Humanity.

The U.S. Academic Decathlon^® is excited to announce that the overall curricular theme for 2023–2024 will be Technology and Humanity. Following is some general information on the topics in each of the subject areas.
 
 

• ART: The art curriculum will explore technology and art.

• ECONOMICS: The economics curriculum will cover fundamental economic concepts, microeconomics, and macroeconomics and will include a thematic section on technology, innovation, and the economy.

• LITERATURE: The literature curriculum will include critical reading, one long work of literature, and selected shorter works. The long work of literature will be The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin.

• MATHEMATICS: The mathematics curriculum will cover general mathematics, geometry, and an introduction to differential calculus.*

• MUSIC: The music curriculum will explore musical works used in science-fiction films.

• SCIENCE: The science topic will be an introduction to neuroscience and will include a section on technology and neuroscience.

• SOCIAL SCIENCE: The social science topic will be the history of computers.

 
 
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 2023–24 mathematics curriculum and materials will be the same as were used for the 2020–21 U.S. Academic Decathlon.