Phoenix Union Bioscience High School was named one of the “Most Amazing High School Campuses in the World” by BestEducationDegrees.com in 2013, ranking 27th out of the 30 places.
The site, which provides information about top schools specializing in educational degrees, determined the ranking based on how well the school implemented “contemporary teaching initiatives and designs,” according to BestEducationDegrees.com.
Bioscience formally announced the recognition this year.
DeeDee Falls, Bioscience’s principal, said the high school uses a “constructivist” learning approach in which learning is a social process. Falls added that teachers engaged students during class and “unpack(ed)” their understanding so they developed a new and deeper meaning of the subject.
“We only have 315 students, so everyone can be a leader,” Falls said.
The location also stands out from most public high schools, residing in the heart of downtown Phoenix and just a few blocks from the ASU Downtown Phoenix campus.
Due to their position in an urban climate, students have the opportunity to join internship or mentorship programs with local business owners in order to gain real-world knowledge.
The architectural roots of the school are notable in and of itself, deriving from the Orcutt/Winslow Partnership, a company that has received several awards, including Phoenix Business Journal’s “Number One Architecture Firm”.
Matt Johnson, an architect who worked on the Bioscience designs, said that the objective of the designers was to create a high-tech and modern high school.
Some of the most advanced features Orcutt/Winslow strived to implement into the school’s architecture were the science labs.
“You think, ‘Oh wow, that’s a high-tech company,’ but that’s a high school,” Johnson said.
Johnson estimated it took six-to-eight months to design the school, with the school opening in 2006, according to its website.
“The facility itself was designed around the program, so before we built we actually had the program developed,” Falls said. “The building was designed in order to promote those interactions that we were looking for, and it’s working pretty well.”
The campus focuses heavily on providing sustainable solutions and producing renewable-energy sources. In the past year, a plot of land donated by Dr. Preethy Kaibara has become a source of scientific growth and community learning.
“Our students are developing a backyard concept,” Falls said. “It’s sort of a teaching yard, teaching people how to be sustainable in their growing of vegetables, but also they have an aquaponics feature that they’ll be putting in.”
Anthony Rivera, a 2014 graduate, worked on the project in his senior year.
“Dr. Kaibara came to us and wanted us to do something with the space, but we didn’t know exactly what we wanted to do with it,” Rivera said. “So from there we engaged in something called ‘senior student projects’ where we looked for problems in the community.”
Rivera said the project eventually evolved to include 17 students, along with a supervising ASU student.
For those interested in engineering, Bioscience began working with a solar charging station to power things such as phones, computers and cars. Bioscience students also constructed their own hybrid vehicle.
Octavio Rodriguez, a senior at Bioscience, had the opportunity to work on the car, an XR-3 Hybrid. He credited the campus for the opportunities with which he was presented.
“Learning about solar energy and different alternative forms of energy, and how to integrate that with the things that we have all around us right here on our campus, it’s all about taking initiative,” Rodriguez said.
Additionally, the school uses solar panels donated by NRG Energy in order to provide a portion of the school’s power. Falls said there was also technology that would allow the school to monitor energy consumption and storage.
As for the future of Bioscience, a few possible renovations may occur over the next few years.
“We’re looking at the possibility of a fab lab (fabrication lab) or maker’s space, so kind of converting one of our existing labs into that space,” Falls said. “We also have a student who’s really passionate about engineering, but music engineering. And so I think he’s going to head up the possibility of transforming one of our rooms into a music studio.”
Overall, the school ranking received a positive reaction from Falls.
“I’m really proud of the work that our teachers and staff do, and our parents who are partners in this whole program, and all of our stakeholders who add so much to what we do,” Falls said. “We couldn’t do this without all of those folks, so I guess I’m just humbled, proud, all of those mixed emotions. I think we deserve it, I think it’s well deserved.”
Contact the reporter at syaghsez@asu.edu
