Science teacher James Dann first stumbled upon an empty basement storage at Menlo while searching for a costume during spirit week in 2008. At that moment, Dann realized the empty space could be utilized for engineering and science classes. In 2012, the underground basement became a place for students to receive a hands-on science education and to build new projects: the Whitaker Lab.
Shortly after discovering the empty basement, Dann began to develop his vision of converting the space into a lab. “That same weekend, I went home and started drawing out what the space would look like,” he said. Dann spent months bringing this vision to life in collaboration with former science teachers Joanie Banks-Hunt and Marc Allard.
Menlo’s former Head of School Norm Colb fully supported their vision and raised money for the construction. The new lab took about a year to build, and construction cost around $1.5 million, excluding the $500,000 worth of lab equipment. In 2020, the east wing, an additional space, was added to the Whitaker Lab at a cost of $2 million.
Prior to the construction of the Whitaker Lab, Banks-Hunt joined Menlo in 2001 as a math teacher and advisor for the engineering club. By 2004, the club had gained so much popularity that she decided to teach three engineering classes instead of math to meet the high demand. The Whitaker Lab provided the perfect home for those classes.
Five years later in 2006, Dann joined Menlo to create and teach the Applied Science Research (ASR) class. Though originally taught in a regular science classroom, ASR now resides in the Whitaker Lab. The course, which is unique because of its emphasis on hands-on learning, quickly became popular among many seniors and remains popular to this day.
Many of the projects involved cutting and drilling materials, which, before the opening of the lab, had to be done in the hallways, sometimes disrupting the foreign language teachers. Dann believed that ASR and the engineering classes needed more space for experiential learning in all its forms: hands-on projects, construction and research.
As ASR enrollment continued to soar, Dann and former science teacher Marc Allard wanted to create a more introductory course for interested underclassmen. The two ended up creating Mechanical and Electrical Engineering in 2014, which was the first of a few classes developed to be taught in Whitaker.
“[The course] would be a stepping stone into ASR,” Allard said. “[Dann] would teach the electrical part, and I would teach the mechanical part.”
To make the Whitaker Lab even more accessible to Upper School students, Dann developed a few more classes alongside fellow science teacher Cristina Weaver. These courses ranged from Neuroscience in 2015, to most recently, Sustainable Earth Engineering in 2018. Science teacher James Formato also created an introductory course for freshmen in Whitaker in 2019.
The Whitaker Lab provides a variety of resources and equipment for Menlo students. According to Allard, some alumni reflect that the quality of Whitaker is even higher than their college lab.
“At the end of the day, my hope is that the lab will continue to excite kids about [taking Whitaker classes], whether it be engineering or design or the environment,” Allard said.
