WASHINGTON - Students in West Virginia middle school classrooms will soon experience the thrill of a NASA space mission -- and learn more about math, science and teamwork in the process, Congressman Alan B. Mollohan said. Mollohan, D-W.Va., earmarked $475,000 in NASA funds for a new distance learning program developed by the Challenger Learning Center at Wheeling Jesuit University. The center will work to deliver an online, hands-on simulated space mission once a year to every middle school in the state.

"Our Challenger Learning Center in Wheeling is among the very best in the business. For five years in a row, it has been honored for serving more children than any other center in the country," Mollohan said, noting that 41 Challenger Centers are a part of the national network. "This success is a positive reflection of the innovative work done by Education Director Nancy Sturm and the entire team at our Challenger Center," he added.

An average of 16,000 students visit the Wheeling Jesuit campus each year to fly simulated space missions at the center. Under its distance learning program, the center delivers another 250 "e-Missions" via the Internet. E-Mission flight directors in Wheeling call on students, serving as earth systems specialists, to help find weather, environmental, biological and atmospheric data. The students gather the information, based on research they conducted as part of their pre-flight curriculum, and forward it to Mission Control.

"We are excited at the prospect of building on this already-impressive program, and welcome the opportunity to bring the adventure of NASA space missions to even more students in our state through the distance learning program," Mollohan said. "Over the next two years, Wheeling Challenger Center officials will invest the $475,000 in new technology, new curriculum and new staff. The number of e-Missions will increase by up to four times -- to1,000 a year -- through this expansion, and enable the distance learning program to be self-sufficient," he said. The e-Mission model product also will be marketed to other Challenger Centers across the country.

The local center's first e-Missions were flown in February 2000 by students at Wayne County Middle School. A $60,000 grant from the West Virginia Legislature financed more than 40 missions, as well as technology training for about 20 Wayne County teachers. Mollohan placed the new federal funding in NASA's 2002 spending bill. He is the top-ranking Democrat on the House appropriations subcommittee that wrote the bill. Both the House and Senate have given final approval to the measure, and President Bush is expected to sign it into law.

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