Challengers Club Receives a Lesson About Space Exploration From JPL

More than 100 children from the Challengers Boys and Girls Club spent Monday morning exploring outer space, courtesy of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

As part of the lab’s “From the Outer Planets to the Inner City” program, science educator Richard Shope brought space exploration to life for the 8- to 15-year-olds.

Without a textbook in sight, Shope used stories and activities to explain complicated scientific theories, such as how spacecraft use momentum from the gravitational pull of planets.

With a group of adults holding two ends of a taut rope, Shope wore the rope’s loop around his waist and ran in orbit around the group. Then, as children grabbed hold of him, they began running at Shope’s speed. When they let go, the children continued moving from the force of Shope’s momentum. A gravity assist of their own.

“It’s complicated to explain,” Shope said afterward. “But when you have the big people there as the sun and one person racing around it, with someone grabbing on, it becomes a lot easier.”