"I'm bored!" and "There's nothing do" are constant phrases uttered by grade school kids throughout the summer. What better way to stimulate children's imaginations than exploring space. The Challenger Learning Center of Colorado announced their schedule of summer space programs for grades 1 - 12.

The Challenger Learning Center's programs offers hands-on exploration of space concepts including space travel, living in space, and the solar system. One of the programs, Space Engineering Odyssey, is specifically designed for high school students and allows students to earn 2 physics college credits from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Other programs offered this summer have students building rockets and investigating the principles of flight. Two of the most popular programs at the Challenger Learning Center last summer, Operation Montserrat and Voyage to Mars, will be available again this summer. These programs are targeted for students entering grades 6 - 9. For the elementary age group they can explore space with hands-on activities about planets and the solar system or for the more adventurous student they can investigate the principles of flight by building model rockets.

The Challenger Learning Center of Colorado--one of 51 Challenger Learning Centers in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. and the first in an eight-state radius--is a space-based learning environment where schoolchildren, families, senior citizens, corporate teams and other community members fly simulated space missions. The CLCC features a Mission Control Center modeled after the one at Johnson Space Center and an International Space Station simulator where experiments are performed and probes are "launched" into the depths of outer space.