Ryland Chapman, left, and Hyo Kim work in their AP biology class at the McCallie School.
A new sciences building will be constructed at the McCallie School.
This is an artist's rendering of the McCallie School's new sciences building set to open in January 2015.Students planted Arabidopsis, or rockcress, seeds Friday morning in shot-glass-size containers in Elizabeth Forrester's advanced placement biology class at McCallie School.
A relative of mustard and cabbage, Arabidopsis is a go-to plant for genetic research -- but it must be refrigerated before it will sprout.
"I'm actually taking these home to my refrigerator," said Forrester.
That won't be necessary much longer, because refrigerated storage space will be included in a $15 million, three-story, 40,000-square-foot science building that's under construction and is slated to open in January 2016 on the campus of the all-boys private school on the slopes of Missionary Ridge off Dodds Avenue.
It's the latest sign of growth and improvement at McCallie, which also has built an indoor tennis center, two new dormitories, a dining hall and renovated its chapel over the past 10 years.
"It's going to be state-of-the-art," McCallie Headmaster Lee Burns III said of the new science building. "We're excited."
It will have space for chemistry and biology labs on the top floor, physics and biology classes on the second floor and a first-floor engineering lab equipped with saws, welding and robotics gear. The first floor also will have a "global conferencing room," a 160-seat space for such uses as meetings. Students will be able to videconference there with scholars elsewhere.
McCallie designed the building to be flexible, Assistant Headmaster Kenneth Sholl said.
"What will science education look like in the future?" Sholl asked. "As best we could, we created a very nimble building."
Students' growing interest in science drove the decision to build a new science building, school officials said.
McCallie offers 20 different science classes, ranging from physics, biology and chemistry to marine biology, environmental science and molecular biology. Out of 667 students, 660 take some sort of science class, school officials said, a big increase from the 250 to 350 students who took science classes in the '70s and '80s.
Teachers have to share classrooms and labs, which isn't ideal from the science department's perspective that each lab science instructor should have their own classroom and that experiential learning is key for students.
School officials are proud of their science students' endeavors. A senior at McCallie, Weimer Macuri-Espinoza, studies cancer biology. And Karah Nazor's biology class raises moon jellyfish and upside-down jellyfish for the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga in tanks that McCallie students helped design in her classroom on the fifth floor of the school's Maclellan Academic Building.
"They're doing graduate-level research," Academic Dean Sumner McCallie said.
Three buildings were torn down -- Tate Hall, Alumni Hall and Lockett Lodge -- to make way for the science building. Wood from three live oak trees that were cut down will be used in the new science building. Chattanooga-based Raines Brothers Inc., is the contractor in charge of the new building's construction.
The effort to raise the $15 million was led by J. Hal Daughdrill III, a 1973 McCallie grad who's the chairman of Diversified Trust, a wealth-management firm.
"We did it in less than a year," Burns said of the fundraising drive. "Alums and parents love McCallie."
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/tim.omarzu or twitter.com/TimOmarzu or 423-757-6651.