Ellisville Students Explore Space

The Center for Creative Learning may be located in Ellisville, but don't think that means its students ambitions are tied to this area — or this planet.

This month, fifth grade students at the school, which offers programming for excelled students in the Rockwood School Distirct, visited the Challenger Learning Center of St. Louis. There, students submitted applications and underwent face-to-face interviews simulating crew positions for desired missions.

Teacher Michelle Stellhorn said the field trip and project, which was part of their class's "Mission to Mars" science unit, was an eye-opening experience for students.

“The preparation activities gave students the feeling of the real world experience of having a career goal, and then giving the effort needed to make their dreams a reality," Stellhorn said.

At the Challenger Learning Center, teams worked to navigate their spacecrafts into lunar orbit, constructed and launched probes to the lunar surface and established permanent bases on the moon’s surface.  From these bases, students used observation and problem solving skills to test the feasibility of establishing various space settlements.

The Challenger Center also added meteor showers, chemical leaks and other serious situations to the mix to provide students with a true space exploration experience.  

“Systems thinking skills were utilized by every team member as the students assessed how their involvement impacted their own team, other teams and the mission as a whole," Stellhorn said.

Trip expenses were supplemented by the Boeing Education Scholarship which Stellhorn received earlier this year.