 The Challenger Learning Center of Kentucky is offering the unique “Space Kidette Rescue” program in January 2008 to 4th-grade classes in the Breathitt County School District, Perry County School District and Hazard Independent School District. Through a PRIDE Environmental Education Grant to the Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative, the program is free to these schools.
Space Kidette Rescue is a simulation exercise in which students learn about water pollution and conservation as they help an animated fish, named Dacey, travel safely down the Kentucky River.
Using the Challenger Learning Center’s space simulation technology, students will monitor Dacey – who is an endangered Black Sided Dace – from earth’s orbit as she makes her journey down the Kentucky River encountering numerous pollution dangers along the way. They will learn through interactive activities, video, displays, modeling, microscopes, conversation and decision-making. Volunteers from the Department of Forestry, Department of Fish and Wildlife, and other businesses and organizations assist with the program.
The program will help students develop a basic understanding of the fragile relationship between living organisms and their environment. They will learn about: - The water cycle.
- The watershed area in which they live.
- Industrial and other uses of land and water in the area.
- Point and non-point source pollution and how it affects stream quality, therefore influencing wildlife habitat.
- How their actions can positively or negatively affect people and communities downstream.
- Ways in which they can personally and immediately have a positive effect on their environment.
The Space Kidette Rescue mission is described in greater detail below, under “The Mission.”
To Participate
Eligible schools should schedule their field trip as soon as possible. To sign up, teachers should call the Challenger Learning Center at 800-246-7521.
The Mission (An excerpt from the Challenger Center’s invitation to eligible schools)
“The Challenger Learning Center of Kentucky has just been contacted for a very important mission and we need you and your classmates to help! We have been asked to help an endangered species of fish called the Blackside Dace make safe passage downstream from the headwaters of the North and Middle forks of the Kentucky River. The Blackside Dace needs high-quality, clean water to survive and is very vulnerable to the impacts from many sources of pollution. There are signs that certain environmental practices in the area are leading to sections of the river being unsuitable for passage of the Blackside Dace, and we need your help to solve these potential problems so that they can successfully reach their destination. You have been selected for this mission because this section of the river is in your backyard, and we’re sure that you are familiar with the area and can be a valuable asset to our team.
“As part of this mission, should you choose to accept it, you and your classmates will make up an Emergency Response Team, or ERT, to help with this impending crisis. The ERT will board the Space Shuttle and blast off to dock with the Space Station orbiting around the Earth. Upon arrival at the Space Station you will use special scientific equipment to monitor the movement of our school of fish down the river, to detect potential hazards to the health of the school, and to offer solutions to problems that might arise. The leader of this fish school is a Blackside Dace named “Dacey” which has been specially tagged with a Global Positioning System detector (GPS) so that we can keep track of the school’s location as it moves downstream.
“We will also receive critical information from NASA, Kentucky Fish and Wildlife, and the Forestry Service that will aid us in our mission. With this data the ERT will predict the effects that certain natural and manmade actions will have on people and the environment. Valuable advice from the ERT will help our future environment.”
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