Challenger Center: Science Challenges

Check out these super cool space science, Earth science and engineering design challenges. Share your predictions, videos and designs!

This project adds activities for teachers and students to use to learn about viewing the Earth from space.

How do we track the space station's location?

Students learn where the International Space Station (ISS) orbits in relation to the Earth and determine its position. Students determine when they can see the ISS from the ground.
What do photographs from space tell us about our planet?

Students describe a variety of natural and manmade features found around their local Challenger Learning Center as they are seen from space.
Conserving Our Planet's Resources

Students write about why they believe these areas should be conserved or protected. Students predict what these locations would look like in the future and write a justification for continued monitoring of one of the locations from space.

Challenger Learning Centers From Space
Richard Garriott took these images from the International Space Station during his flight in October 2008 for Challenger Center for Space Science Education. Each series of images follows the path of the space station over the area where a Challenger Learning Center is located. Students can look over the images, download them and study them carefully to locate areas of interest, including their local Challenger Learning Center. What can you see in the image around your Challenger Learning Center? Can you spot parks, forests, towns, cities, bodies of water? The International Space Station is flying at an altitude of about 200 miles from Earth so from the window you can see vast areas of the planet. Can you tell when Richard used the zoom on his camera?
Nature Conservancy Images from Space
Richard Garriott, private space explorer, partnered with The Nature Conservancy to identify environmental change and successful protection projects around the world. He photographed sites selected by Nature Conservancy scientists during his flight last year to the International Space Station. The photographs will be used by scientists to compare the ecological changes within one generation. Students can explore and download the images and complete research on why these sites are important to conservationists using the information and links provided for each site.