St. Kevin Catholic Academy, a Catholic school located in Flushing, installed a LabLearner Discovery Lab, which was completed for the 2017-2018 school year. The science lab was funded by a grant from the Elizabeth Ann Seton Fund and the Pastors within the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens. LabLearners, a research-based science curriculum program, help the school install the new lab.
“Our passion is to equip the next generation of seekers, scholars, and learners with the scientific essentials needed to flourish and innovate in an evolving world. Parallel to our goal of preparing students for the future of science and life is our belief that science is a critical discipline in the development of young people,” says LabLearners.
Although St. Kevin Catholic Academy has always had a science lab, the LabLearner Discovery Lab is cutting-edge. It is equipped with lab tables and stools, storage cabinets to house materials, light microscopes, two-pan balances, a photo spectrometer, hot plates, an array of beakers, and more. Each child will also wear a lab coat during their lab time so they will feel like a real scientist.
The science lab is available for kindergarten through eighth grade classes. Every class will be scheduled for at least one double period of lab each week, and each grade level will have a different topic to learn about. For example, students in the lower grades will learn about time, measurement, exploring time and sequence, properties of solids and liquids, and earth’s changing surface journey, while students in the upper grades will learn about microscopic explorations, properties of matter, weathering and erosion, atomic structure, and photosynthesis.
“Through the Lab Learners Program, children will become immersed in the process of science—thinking the way scientists think and doing experiments the way scientists would,” says Barbara Graham, a teacher at St. Kevin Catholic Academy. “Students find it’s easy to learn science when they’re working with real science equipment and investigating interesting questions that they can relate to their own lives.”
Main image: St. Kevin Catholic Academy’s newly opened LabLearner Discovery Lab is equipped with light microscopes, two-pan balances, photo spectrometer, hot plates, an array of beakers, and more.
Courtesy St. Kevin Catholic Academy
