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Steve Marsden, far right, receiving the Challenger Learning Center’s Teacher of the Year award. Tasmyn Front, director, shares a few highlights about the passionate teacher’s career, while Robert Powell, education coordinator, looks on. Powell nominated Marsden for the national award.

Officials from the Challenger Learning Center presented Steve Marsden, a fifth-grade teacher from Duchesne Elementary School in Florissant, with a national “Teacher of the Year” award.

Marsden was surprised at a school assembly with this special award. He is one of only five educators from around the nation being honored by Challenger Center for Space Science Education with the Turner N. Wiley Award.

The honor recognizes teachers who exemplify the spirit of the Challenger crew’s education mission, and who share a commitment to learning about science, mathematics, and technology. This teacher will be receiving a rare Apollo 8 medallion produced by NASA during the Apollo-era race to the first lunar landing.

A small number of the medallions were

entrusted to  Turner Wiley, who at the time of the Apollo 8 mission was chief of the NASA Communication Engineering Branch at the Goddard Space Flight Center.  At his request, his gift is used to honor teachers who perform exemplary work in education.

The Challenger Learning Center-St. Louis offers simulated space missions and other space science education programs.

It is part of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, an international not-for-profit education organization founded in April 1986 by the families of the astronauts tragically lost during the Challenger space shuttle mission.

It is organized locally through a partnership of the Ferguson-Florissant School District, the Saint Louis Science Center and the Cooperating School Districts of Greater St. Louis.

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