State of the Art Facilities

“It is a new era for the sciences, a new horizon of opportunity. This beautiful glass-filled building will serve as the open door to discovery through collaboration across laboratories, universities and communities in Northeast Ohio and beyond.”  -Beverly J. Warren, Former President, Kent State University

Located on Summit Street, just in front of the University Library and adjacent to the Student Green, the highly visible ISB will provide students and faculty with a cutting-edge facility that includes new instructional spaces, research labs and offices, study areas and common areas for student, faculty and community interaction and events.

Science on Display

The ISB’s key theme of “science on display” will integrate the study of science into the very experience of walking through the building. With interactive science displays and transparent classroom walls, the facility will bring the study of science to life, engaging the minds and igniting the imaginations of its patrons while also embodying best practices for a green building. Given its prominent location on campus, the ISB will have a broad impact as it showcases and promotes science to diverse student populations as they pass through the building.

Students will benefit from a 21st-century learning experience in three new instructional spaces within the ISB, including two teaching laboratories and an active learning classroom. The teaching laboratories, used for Biological Diversity and Biological Foundations courses, will serve a diverse range of students. Because these courses can substitute for Kent Core basic science classes, students from virtually the entire undergraduate student population will have the opportunity to leverage these modern, flexible laboratories to learn about the fundamentals of science.

While the first floor of the ISB will feature modern teaching labs to increase student engagement and learning outcomes, the second floor will provide state-of-the-art research labs for leading research faculty. Locating research office space and interdisciplinary labs on the second floor is an intentional effort to bolster the integration of research and high-quality education in the undergraduate student experience. These labs will also allow multiple faculty members to work collaboratively across traditional disciplinary boundaries in the sciences. The co-location of leading researchers in highly visible labs with undergraduate students in the same building will help ignite the passion for STEM education at the earliest stages of a student’s journey.

Leveraging modern and versatile teaching spaces in the ISB, faculty will have the opportunity to teach “flipped” classes. In this model, class time is used for what would traditionally be considered homework, while time outside of class is used for what would typically be done in a lecture setting. This is a powerful model for use in classes like Elements of Genetics, in which students are required to solve problems. Historically, this course and similar ones have been challenging for students. The ISB will improve student learning outcomes by providing students with an innovative facility and a modern, flexible learning experience.