UTC's Challenger STEM Learning Center marks 20 years

r. June Scobee Rodgers speaks about the Challenger Center. The center is celebrating its 20th year.
r. June Scobee Rodgers speaks about the Challenger Center. The center is celebrating its 20th year.

Fast facts

* UTC Challenger Center is one of almost 50 such centers in the nation. * In 2014, the UTC center received three awards by the National Challenger Center Network -- Training the Most Teachers, Most Public Programs Provided, and Increasing Total Missions Flown by 10 percent in one program year.

After Dick Scobee first flew the space shuttle Challenger in 1984 on a satellite repair mission, President Ronald Reagan called to congratulate the crew -- but forgot to mention Scobee's name.

That didn't make Scobee angry, his widow, June Scobee Rodgers, said Tuesday.

"No, June, what was important was the mission," she remembers her husband saying. "We got the job done."

That mission continues at the Challenger STEM Learning Center at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, which marked the facility's 20th birthday Tuesday with a luncheon packed with teachers, local dignitaries and others.

The Chattanooga facility is one of almost 50 space-themed learning centers established in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and Korea to commemorate the Challenger "teacher in space" flight that ended on Jan. 28, 1986, when the shuttle exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

The disaster killed seven astronauts, including shuttle Commander Dick Scobee and Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire high school social studies teacher chosen from among thousands of applicants to travel in space.

The crew's families in April 1986 founded the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, a nonprofit organization that has opened the Challenger Centers in partnership with science centers, museums, universities and schools.

The exterior of each Challenger Center is different. But inside, each has a mission control room and the bridge of a space station to simulate a trip in space to teach science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) curriculum.

If you go

Programs include STEM summer camps, teacher professional development programs and team-building programs and retreats. Other programs are provided for scheduled field trips of students in grades K-9 and include: * Space missions: "Rendezvous with Comet Haley," "Return to the Moon," "Voyage to Mars" * Hands-on classes: "Moon Maneuvers," "Mars Rovers," "Pop Rocker and Construction" * Virtual mission to local classrooms: "Tennessee River in Crisis"

In Chattanooga, students on field trips simulate one of three two-hour-long missions: orbiting earth to study Halley's Comet, scouting the moon's surface for prime sites to establish human colonies, and traveling to Mars in 2076.

"It's just really nice to see all these kids learning in an environment that is not like their school building," said Bill Floyd, a flight director at the center who guides students through the simulations.

Most students visit UTC's Challenger Center on field trips. All sixth-grade classrooms in Hamilton County Department of Education schools can visit free of charge. Only the summer camp program at UTC's Challenger Center is open to individual students.

UTC's Challenger Center can claim some firsts: It was the first center on a university campus. And in 2004 it developed a Micronaut program for children ages 5-7 that has since been adopted by other Challenger Centers.

Scobee Rodgers spearheaded the effort to establish UTC's Challenger Center. She and her second husband, retired Army Lt. Gen. Don Rodgers, moved to Signal Mountain in 1991. Scobee Rodgers said former U.S. Rep. Marilyn Lloyd urged her to open a Challenger Center here.

Among those at Tuesday's luncheon was Kathie Scobee Fulgham, the daughter of Dick and June Scobee.

"I'm so proud of my mom," Scobee Fulgham said. "I'm really proud of her, because she channeled her grief into something really miraculous."

Scobee Rodgers plans to be at Arlington National Cemetery today for NASA's Day of Remembrance for astronauts who died in the crashes of the space shuttle Challenger and Columbia and in the Apollo 1 command module fire.

But she told the audience Tuesday that when NASA's Day of Remembrance comes around, "what we really like to do is visit a Challenger Center."

Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/tim.omarzu or twitter.com/TimOmarzu or 423-757-6651.

Upcoming Events