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Challenger Center seeks to build Challenger Learning Center Communities that motivate, inspire, and prepare learners of all ages to explore the wondrous realms of science, mathematics, and technology. It is our hope that these communities will cultivate a sense of curiosity and discovery about the universe among all of its residents, including students, teachers, and families.
To deliver on this mission, Challenger Center has built an international network of Challenger Learning Center Communities that have at their core a Challenger Learning Center Simulator.
Challenger Center and local Challenger Learning Centers work both in collaboration and independently to develop programs, products, and services that supplement education opportunities already available. With additional education elements, the goal is to create a robust and vibrant learning community.
These elements comprise a Challenger Learning Center Community.
Programming for Schools
Challenger Learning Center Communities are about more than just flying simulated missions. In order to become a community resource for ongoing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics initiatives, Challenger Center is committed to developing, as well as serving as a catalyst for others to develop, education programs for grades Kindergarten through adult.
This diverse and growing catalog of programs is grade-level specific, and always includes a process that ensures successful content delivery.
Professional Development
Throughout our history, Challenger Center has recognized the gap between what is expected of our educators and what they enter the classroom prepared to deliver. To bridge that gap, we have always been central in efforts to make teachers more confident and competent in what they teach and how they teach it.
Both Challenger Center and the Challenger Learning Center network have and continue to create and disseminate hundreds of professional and staff development programs and materials in support of the mission simulations flown at Challenger Learning Centers.
We have also developed diverse programs and materials for pre- and in-service Kindergarten through adult formal and informal educators.
These programs include EdVentures in Simulation, the educator professional development components of Journey through the Universe, and many others. All have strong connections to the National Science Education Standards and the No Child Left Behind Act.
Current Professional Development Programs:
Global Learning (Distance Learning)
Challenger Learning Communities can and do exist in both real and virtual space. Learning wherever and whenever is a key element of a Challenger Learning Center Community—to seek learning opportunities and science resources beyond the city limits.
More than just continuing the experience of a Challenger Learning Center simulation, a variety of digital content-based programs and educational products are being developed that will extend our reach into the classroom as well as the home.
Global Learning programming involves an interactive exchange between learners and educators. As in the case of Challenger Center's EdVenture Lab, even the sky is no longer the limit. Whether the EdVenture Lab is used to work collaboratively with students across the country, or to conduct a brief "long distance" call to astronauts on board the International Space Station, students and teachers embark on learning experiences that literally have almost no boundaries.
Several Challenger Learning Centers offer programs called e-Missions so that students in even the most remote locations can still travel to Mars. e-Missions use the Internet or other distance learning technology to create a live link between the students and Flight Directors at a Challenger Learning Center many miles away.
Current Global Learning Programs:
Public Programs
Increasingly, the school day is extending beyond 9:00 to 3:00, while education opportunities continue to present themselves long after college. In order for education to become a priority for all community members, learning must move beyond the classrooms and into community rooms and living rooms.
Challenger Center and the Learning Center network seek to develop public outreach programs that offer opportunities for informal learning. Ideally, these programs will serve as launch pads for further science exploration by families or community groups.
Current Public Programs:
Exhibitions
Through programs like Voyage: A Journey through our Solar System, Challenger Center is creating permanent and traveling exhibitions related to our mission.
Accompanying these exhibitions, Challenger Center develops ways to add interactivity to otherwise passive experiences—most often in the form of educational materials. Our researchers and educators work collaboratively on pre- and post-visit activities for educators and students in support of exhibitions.
Challenger Center will continue to partner with like-minded organizations such as NASA and the Smithsonian Institution, and to ensure the development of a robust library of educational materials in support of these exhibits.
Current Exhibitions:
Additional Information
For those interested in transforming their towns into Challenger Learning Center Communities, contact Challenger Center's Network Development office via e-mail at rd@challenger.org; telephone at (888) 683-9740; or the Feedback Form.
