St. Mark’s School of Texas

St. Mark’s has long been a leader in STEM education. In 1961 they built the “first science, engineering, technology and math facility of its day.” In 2014, the school recommitted to their program with facilities that “mark a new era in STEM education” with their 74,000 square foot facility— 50,000 square feet of new construction and a renovation of the existing 24,000 square foot McDermott-Green Science Building.

The new Science Center includes learning labs for chemistry, physics, biology and environmental sciences as well as labs for advanced work in biotechnology and applied and experimental engineering. The middle school science spaces are being upgraded to provide both flexibility for modern learning pedagogies and to increase the ability of faculty to shape future learning activities. All learning labs are affiliated with core science facilities including an 80-person planetarium, a highly visible fab-lab and maker space suite and a working greenhouse. Exterior “learning pads” are integrated into the project by locating science focus areas into the exterior and courtyard design. These include a native-landscaped outdoor classroom, a robotics courtyard, an observatory platform, a pyro-pad and a bio-pond and water harvesting system.

The facility represents St. Mark’s vision of encouraging new methods of discovery, independent research and interdisciplinary learning for tomorrow’s science curriculum.

Ribbon-cutting ceremony