The Most Powerful Piece of Equipment in the Classroom

e-Mission challenge students to apply their mathematic
and science knowledge to a real-life event.

It’s September 4, 1996. You are responsible for saving the lives of 8,000 people living on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat—possibly the most dangerous place on earth at this time. You’ve been assigned to be a member of the volcano, the hurricane, or the evacuation team. Your job is to track the data arriving every six minutes from Mission Control, a satellite gathering vital life-saving data. You record, analyze, and make predictions as to when the volcano will erupt, the hurricane will hit, and how you’ll manage to save the island people from this major disaster.

Challenger Learning Center Education Director and former Iowa Science Teacher of the Year Nancy Sturm (MS ’93) developed this exciting learning project for sixth- through twelfth-grade students. Through this e-Mission, she’s created a situation where learning becomes real, where the students can be scientists. “When you see kids running to get to your classroom,” Sturm said, “you know you’ve done something right.”

Curriculums of the Challenger Learning Center’s distance-learning e-Missions are aligned with national science and geography standards. Then, with the help of computers, the Internet, and a small video camera, classrooms link with a flight director at the Challenger Learning Center and learning becomes a live event happening in real time. The project is an interactive method to improve students’ problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, to learn the importance of communication and teamwork, and effectively utilize technology in the classroom.

But Sturm warns teachers not to let technology drive the curriculum. “Remember,” she says, “the teacher is the most powerful piece of technology in the classroom.”

Sturm says the unique hands-on learning experience not only brings learning to life, but also gives learning a reason. And that is the aim of the 49 Challenger Learning Centers nationwide, established by the Challenger Center for Space Science Education in memory of the ill-fated Challenger Space Shuttle.

Sturm knows all about the drawbacks of traditional education methods. After team teaching science to eighth graders for five years, she was at a crossroads as to whether to continue in the profession or find something else to do. She credits Iowa’s masters in Science Education program and its coordinator, John Dunkhase, as turning her life around.

“He made me look not simply at what children learn, but how they learn,” she said. “The program took me from being a boring teacher to someone who understands what learning is all about.”

Dunkhase says Iowa’s faculty foster a vision of what effective science education is all about, based on research, standards, and best practice methods. This includes students interacting with real data and using knowledge to apply it to real world situations. “Nancy has taken this philosophy, internalized it, and successfully translated these ideas into practice,” he said. “It has become a part of everything she does and who she is.”

To learn more about e-Missions and other exciting distance-learning opportunities, visit the Challenger Learning Center online at –by Jill Fishbaugh