Location: Kenai, Alaska
Client: Challenger Learning Center of Alaska
Market Sectors: Education
The Challenger Learning Center in Kenai, Alaska is a multipurpose community/educational facility designed as a living memorial to the Challenger Astronauts. The learning center contains simulated space missions that include Mission Control, an Orientation Room, the Labyrinth, and a Space Station. Other areas include the lobby, administrative and staff areas, a gift shop, and the required service areas.
Phase II of the center provides an addition which is approximately 9,000 sf that includes two new multiple-use classrooms and a distance learning center where educational content is produced and delivered statewide. Distance learning was a new approach for the National Challenger Learning Center Organization and is unique in Alaska because of the distance constraints which our rural children have. The addition also includes dormitories for boys and girls to stay when they visit from surrounding areas. The dormitories are designed to simulate a space station environment to further engage the imagination of students in their “mission” to space. The facility provides leading edge technology for the application of “distance learning.”
