Group raising funds for space learning center

RENO -- A Reno group is leading an effort to bring Northern Nevada into the space age -- and stimulate the dreams and ambitions of impressionable students.

Stephen McFarlane, former dean of the University of Nevada School of Medicine, is leading a $1.5 million fundraising effort to build a Challenger Learning Center, which would include simulations of NASA's Mission Control in Houston and the International Space Station.

There are 52 Challenger Learning Centers in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada with others under construction as far away as Japan.

The centers are sanctioned by the Challenger Center for Space Education, a nonprofit educational organization created in 1986 by the families of the astronauts and one teacher who died in the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle.

"These centers turn kids on to science and math, and they also learn team-building and communication skills," said McFarlane said, president of the Challenger Learning Center of Northern Nevada, a volunteer development corporation with tax-exempt status working to fund and build the Reno center.