Berkshire Community College opens a new science center. It's the school's first major renovation for an academic space. YNN's Madeleine Rivera took a tour of the building and has more.

  To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- "If this wasn't here, where would you go?" I asked Tais Keels, a student at Berkshire Community College.

"Nowhere, there would be no place for us to go," she answered.

But, Berkshire Community College students no longer have to face that possibility. With the opening of the Hoffman Environmental Center, students of environmental studies and technology have a modern facility where they can work.

"Without this building, we would probably have to go off-campus to another facility to be able to do our science experiments," said Keels.

The Hoffman Center re-opens it doors after 18 months of renovation. The $1.5 million project is the first academic renovation of a space.

"We here at BCC are fortunate that we have everything right here locally, and it's all state of the art, modern equipment," said BCC Professor John Tatro.

The cutting edge technology is something students say will help them in the long run.

"We're able to use something that we're going to be using on the job instead of using something that's 10 years out of date," said Kamrin Levesque, a student at BCC.

"Without this, it was more of an academic exercise," said Tatro.

This renovation is one of a few construction projects at the school. Two classrooms will be renovated in the near future.