GH Community Celebrates New 6th Grade Lab

On Tuesday, Sept. 20, Greenhills donors, volunteers and parents gathered in the 6th grade forum to officially celebrate the completion of the new 6th grade science lab. (Click here to view celebration photo gallery.)

The new $400,000 lab, which has been in use by 6th grade science teacher Bridget Quinn Maldonado since the beginning of the school year, features doubled class, lab and storage space, and a set of new restrooms.
At the celebration, head of school Peter Fayroian thanked attendees for coming, especially one guest in particular: Jane Bridges, who founded the 6th grade program in 1989. “Jane really paved the way for the sixth-grade program and is the reason we’re here today,” said Fayroian.

Major gift donor and Promise committee chair Karen Gordon then explained why her family (husband Frank, daughter Kelly ’04 and son Christopher ’08) felt compelled to lead the support for the lab.

“Often people will ask me why be so involved? Your children have come and gone through
Greenhills, and they’re right,” Gordon said. “But our children’s experiences continue with Greenhills well after graduation through the college counseling office in assisting a college transfer for our daughter, through teachers and coaches who maintain contact with both our son and daughter, through letters of recommendation for job/career opportunities. Our feeling is that in some small way we want to give back to the school that gave and continues to give our children so much.”

The 6th grade lab is our latest accomplishment. With $3.9 million in gifts given to support the Greenhills Promise Projects, the school has also:
• completed three new upper school labs—for freshmen biology, advanced biology and physics,
• added three student project labs for longer-term research projects,
• opened a new (perspective) LEED Gold Junior Forum, with a new College Counseling Center, and
• added five new academic classrooms.

LEED features include a geothermal heating and cooling system, a wind turbine (a gift from the Class of 2007), a rainwater catchment and roof irrigation system designed to care for the new green roofing (supported by a gift from the Class of 2010), and low-emission, recycled cork flooring, carpeting and lighting.