The Academy of Notre Dame de Namur in Villanova, Pa., has broken ground on a 30,000-square-foot Center for STEM Education.
The new facility for the private Catholic school for girls in grades six to 12 is considered a pivotal element of Notre Dame’s five-year strategic vision and campus master plan, "Our Time to Inspire."
One of the goals in the master plan is to "create dynamic teaching and learning environments."
"By providing the beauty of its 19th-century estate setting and providing state-of-the-art facilities for all activities, Notre Dame's campus will be safe, welcoming and attractive," the plan says.
The new center will provide technology-enabled active learning (TEAL) environments—eight science laboratories, three lab prep rooms, eight mathematics classrooms, a design thinking and entrepreneurship classroom and labs dedicated to design and innovation, robotics and coding.
A large first-floor gathering area, the STEM Gallery, is designed to be a flexible and multipurpose space that will enable the community to celebrate student, faculty and alumnae achievements. Spaces for small-group collaboration are distributed throughout the corridors on both floors.
