The Upper School STEM & Humanities Center, which opened in the 2018–2019 school year, includes areas to collaborate and discover around every corner, including this nook of writeable walls on the second floor of the STEM wing.
Learning Environments
The Upper School Learning Commons, which opened in 2012, is a LEED Standard space that serves as a combined library, study area and social hub.
The quad area is at the center of the Learning Commons, STEM & Humanities Center and Kirby Gym. The quad serves as a gathering space for students during lunch and breaks, and many students find it to be an ideal place to study during free periods.
A state-of-the-art fabrication lab within the new Upper School STEM & Humanities Center is home to our robotics and physics classes and extracurricular FIRST Robotics Competition team. The lab includes a ShopBot PSAlpha for cutting custom-designed parts from aluminum, wood, plastics and other materials, as well as tools like a lathe, drill press and mitre saws for fabricating custom machines.
The STEM & Humanities Center includes 10 small spaces for quiet study and group work. There are several similar spaces in the Upper School Learning Commons.
Classrooms and labs in the new Upper School STEM & Humanities Center feature best-in-class safety equipment, with lab tables set up in a fashion that accommodates group work.
Photography students learn to make prints from film using light and chemistry in the darkroom.
Natural light fills the spacious Upper School dance studio, where large windows open up the space to the outdoors.
From the walls to the ceiling, nearly every surface of the Upper School art studio — divided into two distinct spaces — is covered in work created by students over the years.
The Upper School's Kenan Auditorium — with seating for more than 500 — is the venue for all student assemblies, as well as for performing arts events.
Technical theater students working behind the scenes lend a professional polish to student performing arts events. In the production course, students learn about sets, lighting, sound, production management and costumes, with coursework including everything from building sets to setting up lights.
The Upper School library, housed within the Learning Commons, features about 8,000 print resources including fiction, non-fiction, reference and periodical collections. In addition, there are dozens of online subscription databases, offering full-text access to thousands of scholarly journals, e-books, multimedia resources, audiobooks and more.
Places to socialize and collaborate on school projects are abundant on the Upper School campus, indoors and out.
A state-of-the-art weight room is available to students during their free periods, before school, after school and over the summer. The weight room features exercise bikes, treadmills, ellipticals, a rowing machine and a diverse array of strength-training equipment.
The Upper School campus includes six fields and courses for baseball, softball, cross-country, track, lacrosse and soccer, as well as six tennis courts and a gymnasium.
Basketball and volleyball contests are played at Kirby Gym, which was renovated and expanded in 2013. In addition to the gymnasium itself, the facility includes the Upper School weight room, a yoga room, locker rooms, offices and a meeting room.