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Del Norte - Science
Bond Facilities Projects Development Team Report – Del
Norte Campus
Science Classrooms
What disciplines need to be supported by this instructional space? Include
current curriculum and also include curriculum that, based on your view of the
future, will need to be developed. On average, how many students are currently
serviced in each of these areas each semester?
Science rooms: (rooms 23 and 26)
Courses offered currently include general biology, introduction to biology, human biology,
natural history, various natural history courses of specific groups, anatomy, physiology,
microbiology, chemistry, environmental science, geology, oceanography, and anatomyphysiology-microbiology (LVN 114). Room 23 is still being utilized by the nursing
classes, and for storage of large amounts of nursing laboratory materials.
Future course offerings could include physics, physical science, geography, zoology,
botany, entomology (orchard), natural resources, and conservation.
On average we serve 100-150 students per semester plus the occasional nursing class
thrown in. Up to 350 (?) students per semester will be served in the coming decade.
Also, we need to develop storage areas for reference collections for natural history
classes and for the Del Norte Institute of Natural Science.
What is the instructional philosophy that guides instruction in these disciplines?
What specific elements in the instructional space would best accommodate that
philosophy?
In general, the classes in this area are content loaded and objective driven.
The classes that support the health sciences and the natural sciences have very specific
requirements for certification and upper division work. This necessitates a certain
minimum amount of equipment (microscopes, autoclave, incubators, dissection
instruments, strip-chart recorders, sinks, burners, gas, air, vacuum lines, glassware,
balances, and various mechanical apparatuses), chemicals, and a preparation area. We
are very inadequate in these areas. Our laboratory was designed to be an inorganic
chemistry laboratory twenty years ago. This imposes severe limitations on laboratory
exercises in other disciplines, especially biology and geology.
What are the frustrations with and/or limitations of the current space that hamper
learning? Please be specific.
Our laboratory was designed, twenty years ago, to be an inorganic chemistry laboratory.
This imposes severe limitations on laboratory exercises in other disciplines, especially
biology and geology. There is inadequate room for dissections, map work, and
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Del Norte - Science
laboratory work in areas other than inorganic chemistry. We have tried to overcome
some of these limitations with alternative approaches, but the limited area has led to the
inability of many students to even see the blackboards.
Inadequate storage area and inadequate preparation area are two other major problems.
Our chemical storage room is not ventilated and it is undersized. We use this as a
preparation area as well. Our chemicals are not adequately separated form one another
by reactive category. Our cadavers are stored in a garage approximately one hundred
yards from the instructional facility. Aside from offending the sensibilities of some of the
community members, wheeling two cadavers two hundred yards over rough pavement
for each anatomy or LVN 114 laboratory is becoming a physical problem for the
instructor. This is especially true when it is raining, as it usually is in Del Norte.
Science lectures in room 23 (one of only two rooms on campus with a demonstration
table, and the only one with water and gas on a demonstration table) are poorly
supported. The instructors that use computer-aided instruction in the room have to wheel
in their own computers on a cart and go through a cumbersome hook-up process for
each lecture period.
What types of instructional activities will need to be accommodated in this
instructional space? Please be exhaustive and specific.
Room 23 is the lecture room that is required for science lectures. It has the abovementioned demonstration table. This would primarily remain as the science lecture room.
Room 26 will continue to accommodate chemistry, physics, and physical science
laboratories. It needs to be enlarged and have computer stations better integrated into
the instructional space.
It is here suggested that room 29 be converted to another science laboratory facility to
accommodate biology, anatomy, microbiology, geology, environmental science, and
those other natural science classes to be offered that are not chemistry or physics. This
laboratory would be for dissections of both cadavers and animals, growth and
maintenance of microorganisms, microscopy, storage and viewing of maps and
geological specimens, storage for collections of organisms, storage of models and charts
for biology classes, exercises in air water and soil qualities, exercises in waste analysis,
computer access to relevant data and information from the internet, computer access to
the local network for computer-enhanced or computer-based instruction.
What are the technical demands that this space must meet?
Room 23 needs better ventilation, and perhaps a fume hood, for demonstrations. An
incorporated computer station with projection and internet capacity would greatly facilitate
the presentation of class material. There is a continued need for both visual
presentations and demonstrations in this room.
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Room 26 needs to be expanded to accommodate the needs of chemistry, physics, and
physical science. This would include improving visual access of the blackboard and
returning the over-sink apparatus to its chemistry and physics uses. Better ventilation,
fume hoods, and storage space are required for these classes.
What other disciplines and/or services on campus have a direct relationship with
this area and explain the benefits of proximity to any of those areas.
Nursing, other proposed health science programs, the proposed orchard project, and
general education students needing a laboratory science all have direct relationship to
the sciences area.
Include any other descriptions and/or analyses that would assist the architects in
designing space that would best accommodate student learning in the disciplines
you are concerned with.
If rooms 23, 26, and 29 were to become the science “wing”, then it would be reasonable
to expand into the TV room between 26 and 29 to provide chemical storage, specimen
storage, cadaver storage and preparation room. This room could open into both
laboratories, and also provide an office for the science technician. Also, a single “fire
wall” could separate the science area from the rest of the building. Expansion of room 26
to the east, and the current chemical stockroom to the north, into what is now an office,
would meet the requirements of expanding the laboratory for chemistry and physics. It
would then be possible to make 29 into a true laboratory facility for the needs of biology,
geology, and the other non-chemistry, non-physics courses.
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