ACADEMIC DECATHLON (AcaDec)
The Arizona Academic Decathlon is a ten-event scholastic competition for teams of high school students. Just like its ancient Greek counterpart, the Academic Decathlon® consists of ten events; success doesn’t come from being the best in a single event, it comes from mastering ten varied skills and disciplines.
Every Academic Decathlon competition, whether it’s a regional, state or national final follows the same format. Students compete in art, economics, essay, interview, language & literature, mathematics, music, science, social science, and speech. And teams compete in Super Quiz, the public quiz-show-style culmination of each competition. Each school enters a team of nine decathletes: three Honor students, three Scholastic students, and three Varsity students. (azacadec.org).
2024-2025 THEME
The United States Academic Decathlon’s curriculum is an interdisciplinary curriculum in which a selected theme is integrated across six different subject areas: art, economics, literature, music, science, and social science. Students also study mathematics and participate in essay-writing, speech and interview events. The 2024-2025 theme is “Our Changing Climate.”
Anyone interested in a variety of topics can join Academic Decathlon - usually known as AcaDec. To compete a student needs to be eligible - maintain a C average in all classes - and do well on the in-class tests. To compete, our team needs 3 people with a 4.0 - 3.8 GPA, 3 with a 3.79 - 3.2 GPA, and 3 with a 3.19 - 0 GPA.
National link for AcaDec US Academic Decathlon link
Arizona link for AcaDec Arizona Academic Decathlon site
