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Case Study:
Saint Monica Catholic Academy

Photo provided by Saint Monica Catholic Academy

Bringing Science to Life: How a K-8 Private School Transformed Student Engagement with Interactive Technology

Introducing Cost-Effective, Engaging Digital Labs for Elementary and Middle School Students At Saint Monica Catholic Academy (SMCA), the science faculty wanted to provide their students with a more engaging, visual, and cost-effective way to explore science. As teachers at a K-8 school, they were looking for a way to get access to hands-on, meaningful lab experiences that got students invested in science early — without the recurring expense, setup time, or chemical hazards of traditional labs. With the Science Table by Anatomage, the school found a solution that brought science concepts to life, from cells and plant growth to the solar system and beyond.

Challenge

Before adopting the Science Table, the faculty at SMCA were initially exploring the possibility of acquiring a virtual dissection table. “A couple of years ago, we purchased fetal pigs for dissection,” said Janet McCann, a science teacher at SMCA. “It was expensive — and we got a lot of kids who complained about the smell.”

That instance highlighted some of the obstacles the science program faced that limited students’ learning opportunities. Traditional hands-on labs like dissection required significant financial investment, which created hesitation around buying and storing potentially hazardous chemicals and materials in a school environment, restricting the types of experiments McCann and her fellow teachers could safely conduct.

More importantly, these types of experiments provided only a single learning opportunity rather than an ongoing educational resource. With the responsibility of teaching grades 6 through 8, plus occasional lower elementary science lessons, SMCA’s faculty needed a versatile tool that could address vastly different curriculum requirements, from first-grade habitat studies to eighth-grade periodic table concepts.

Solution

Photo provided by Saint Monica Catholic Academy

After discovering the Anatomage Table at a national education conference, SMCA ultimately decided the virtual dissection platform was a little too advanced for the school’s K-8 students — but they immediately saw the opportunity to engage students and build strong science foundations with the Science Table by Anatomage.

McCann structures her lessons by first introducing concepts through textbooks, before transitioning to hands-on Science Table activities that bring those concepts to life. To support her sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade science curricula, she uses the Science Table to pair digital labs with each lesson. For example, her seventh graders have explored the difference between plant and animal cells using the Cell Explorer lab, while eighth graders reinforced chemistry concepts with a deep dive into the Periodic Table simulation. The Science Table’s diverse range of experiments has even allowed for expanded use across the entire school, leveraging age-appropriate content like animal habitats and plant growth simulations for the younger elementary school students. “I’ve actually used it with [almost] all grade levels,” McCann said.

Cell Explorer on the Science Table by Anatomage

Periodic Table on the Science Table by Anatomage

Beyond its variety, McCann values the Science Table’s practicality, with its ready-to-run experiments and their associated teacher guides. “There’s very little prep time,” she said. “I print out the papers and that’s pretty much it. [Anatomage’s] teacher guides included everything I’ve needed.” Unexpectedly, the Science Table has also opened new ways to use time effectively. “If I have ten minutes left in class, we’ll jump on there and pick something we’ve never done before,” McCann said, which allows her students to explore space simulations like the Black Hole — building investment in science outside of their standard curriculum.

McCann strategically uses the Science Table to supplement rather than replace traditional instruction, maintaining textbook learning for foundational knowledge while the Science Table provides visual reinforcement and interactive exploration that deepens understanding and retention.

Black Hole Space Simulation on the Science Table by Anatomage

With the Science Table, students and teachers get more excited about science. We get more excited about learning. That’s what it does for us.

Janet McCann, Science Teacher and STEM Lab Coordinator at Saint Monica Catholic Academy

Results

Since adopting the Science Table, McCann has observed a clear improvement in student engagement, comprehension, and even test performance. Some students lose concentration during textbook instruction, but according to McCann, “It’s never like that at the Table. They’re all engaged — whether they’re watching, doing, or waiting.”

Students have also shown stronger conceptual understanding, with visual learners having particularly benefited from the 3D representations. “One of my students said just being able to see it made a difference,” McCann shared. “Another said, ‘It showed us more than what the book told us.’”

That noticeable improvement in comprehension has translated to an increase in academic performance, with standardized test scores showing continuous progress over the years since the Science Table’s implementation. In McCann’s words, she and her students “have been using the same books and curriculum, so I definitely attribute that progress to using the Table.” From a practical standpoint, the Science Table has also significantly reduced prep time and material costs. McCann no longer needs to purchase, prepare, and store lab supplies for each experiment, with the digital labs requiring only printed materials.

As McCann succinctly stated: “The Science Table is well worth it. It’s well worth the money. It’s well worth the time that you spend initially looking, training, and planning.” By integrating the Science Table as a central teaching tool, Saint Monica Catholic Academy has created a more engaging, effective, and sustainable science education program that serves students across elementary and middle school, preparing them for learning beyond their walls.

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