Photo: Chris Fama \ WBZ NewsRadio
WEYMOUTH, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Weymouth's new Maria Weston Chapman Middle School is set to open this September with state-of-the-art labs to cultivate student's interests within a new learning curriculum.
Students in grades six through eight will have access to brand new facilities that encourage and embrace a hands-on, inclusive, and interdisciplinary approach to learning. That is according to HMFH Architecture, the Cambridge based firm that designed the new middle school. Students can choose electives that truly interest them while gaining a meaningful, hands-on learning experience in a state-of-the-art twenty-first-century classroom.
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Some of the exploratory courses include a culinary lab, a broadcast TV studio, a wood shop, a robotics lab, and a theater arts classroom. The culinary lab has the appearance of a real restaurant kitchen, with five professional stainless steel ranges, a walk-in refrigerator and freezer, a dry storage area, and a flash refrigerator. Construction began in April 2020, and will house around 1,470 students this fall, according to Weymouth Public Schools.
Photo: Chris Fama \ WBZ NewsRadio
"We have to [sometimes] meet students where their interests are and we're trying to match that interest with labs like this. For a while, schools were so focused on the course that they started to loose the student's interests, but we're bringing all of that back in a new way of teaching them décor as well," Principle Matthew Meehan told WBZ's Chris Fama.
The Weymouth School District invested about $164 million into the project to fit the new curriculum geared towards practical experiences for students. The Town of Weymouth says the Massachusetts School Building Authority is reimbursing the town for about 61 percent of all eligible costs.
"We're changing up the court [with] more project space hands-on learning... what we really wanted to focus on [is] students having opportunities across many different genres of learning," said Meehan.
Chris Fama (@CFamaWBZ) Reports:
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