Beaver’s renovated science wing opened for classes on Monday, September 12 after over four months of construction. As students and teachers have settled in to the new space, they have high praise for the classrooms, collaboration area, and lounge.

Classrooms feature an abundance of natural light, modular furniture, and Idea Paint on the walls, which turns any wall into a white board. A new collaboration area was designed for the space outside of the library entrance. This area will allow students to gather for collaborative project work. Idea Paint, a display area, and an LCD monitor (still to come) round out the collaboration area.

In the first few days of using the science wing, students naturally gravitated to the lounge area in the hallway that connects the wing with the main building. This space has comfortable banquette seating with plenty of power outlets for the ever-present laptop.

With Beaver at the forefront, science education is changing to better serve the needs of students in a scientific world that now includes bioethics, genetics, and nanotechnology in addition to biology, physics, and chemistry. The improved science wing will allow students to do science, instead of just learning about it, in an environment well suited to today’s scientific pursuits.

View a video below of students talking about the new science wing and see the Facebook photo gallery of students’ first day in the space.

Top photo: New lounge area in renovated science wing.