February 15, 2005
Tallahassee- Flowers Foods is footing the bill for all eighth-graders in Thomasville to visit the Challenger Learning Center in Tallahassee.
They're only eighth graders, but these students take their mission at the Challenger Learning Center just like professional NASA crews. "It was just a really good learning experience for us," says Central Middle School 8th Grader Angela Sykes.
It's an out of this world, and out-of-the-classroom experience, designed to give these kids some down to earth know-how in mission control, and a spacecraft simulator. "It definitely isn't something you get to do everyday. When you get to come down here and actually participate in the mission, it's very hands on," says Sykes.
But it did take a lot of classroom training to prepare them for the trip to Tallahassee. "In one room, we studied eclipses. In another room we played 'Battleship' to get ready for coordinates," says Sykes.
Once the technical emergency scenarios were taken care of, the mission was successful and the students were brought back to earth with kudos and knowledge.
Not only are the students assigned a mission, they also get a full day of classroom activities, a visit to the center's IMAX theatre, and its planetarium.
Posted at 5:11 PM by stephen.ryan@walb.com
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