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Melanie Canaday, an eighth-grade teacher from Berkeley Middle School in Ferguson has been named a 2012 recipient of the Turner N. Wiley Teacher Award along with three other educators from across the country.

Canaday said, “It is an honor to be recognized in this elite group of educators. The St. Louis Challenger Learning Center has been instrumental in developing and maintaining numerous science projects at Berkeley Middle School that helps to encourage our students to pursue careers in science and math.”

Tasmyn Scarl Front, director at the Challenger Learning Center–St. Louis said, “Melanie Canaday is a dedicated teacher who loves to share her passion for space science education with her students. She eagerly participates in a variety of Challenger Learning Center programs that provide her with new ideas and resources to help engage her students in meaningful activities.”

The Teacher of the Year award is a special medallion that was produced by NASA from material taken on the Apollo 8 mission to the Moon.  On December 24, 1968, in what was the most watched television broadcast to date, the crew of Apollo 8 read from the Book of Genesis and beside astronauts William Anders, Jim Lovell, and Frank Borman was a small ball of pure aluminum to be used as a “thank you” to the ground support teams. Upon return to Earth, this memento was melted with a larger amount of pure aluminum from which this medallion was struck.

A small number of the medallions were entrusted to Mr. Turner Wiley’s care, who at the time was Chief of the NASA Communication Engineering Branch at the Goddard Space Flight Center.  At his request, his gift is used to honor students and teachers who perform exemplary work in education.

The award-winning Challenger Learning Center, located at 205 Brotherton Road in Ferguson, Missouri, provides simulated space missions and other science education programs for schools, scouts and corporate groups as well as for the general public. It features a replica Mission Control center and an orbiting space station.

The Challenger Learning Center-St. Louis is a partnership of the Ferguson-Florissant School District, the Saint Louis Science Center and the Cooperating School Districts and is part of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education. For more information, visit “http://www.clcstlouis.org” www.clcstlouis.org