This just in:  Dream Flight Adventures has been selected as a finalist in the Design, Art, and Technology Awards, an annual event hosted by the Pittsburgh Technology Council, that promotes creative new innovations.  Head on over to the finalist listings to see other exciting projects, and be sure to vote for us.  🙂

Hot off the press, here’s our brand new video that introduces the Infinity Knights and our simulators.  The Infinity Knights are the renowned protectors of peace and justice throughout the universe.  They travel through time and space protecting the innocent, resisting oppression, and making the universe a better place for everyone.  It’s not an easy job, and our recruits have to use every ounce of creativity they have—plus a whole lot of quick thinking and teamwork—to accomplish their missions.

In just a few short days we’ll be publicly unveiling the IKS Titan, our simulator classroom in the Shaler Area Elementary School.  Stay tuned to this blog for updates about the exciting event.  In the shadow of this momentous occurrence we’re delighted to announce yet another exciting project:

The Dream Weaver Challenge!

Our missions are well-known for the unique way they blend completely disparate topics.  We mix chemistry with politics… physics with history… biology with literature!  It’s one of the things that make our missions so incredible, and now we’re opening up the Dream Weaver Challenge to let our great community—in our backyard and nationwide—create a brand new Mission with us.

Here’s how it works:

Organizations Suggest Topics

If you represent an organization that has a passion for a particular subject that youth should learn more about, simply fill out the form below:

Go back

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Organization(required)

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Subject Area of Interest(required)

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Submit

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We’ll process all the submissions for alignment to educational standards and then present them to our bright young cadets.

Kids Dream Up Adventures

Our bright young cadets—from far and wide, everyone is invited to participate—will write short stories weaving their choice of topics into an exciting adventure set in the Infinity Knights universe.

We’ll review the entries, and the winning story will be incorporated into a brand new Mission!

If you’re a teacher, community leader, or parent with kids that would like to participate, simply contact us and we’ll get you involved.

That’s it for now, but there will be more details to follow.  Please tune in or subscribe to this blog for future updates.

First, we’re delighted that announce that we’ve been spotlighted in two recent articles at THE Journal and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  Check ’em out!

Next, I want to share an interesting article about the neuroscience and research being on the way people learn.  Specifically, the article researches the role of emotion in learning and creativity.

Students’ social and emotional reactions to learning are imperative to feeling motivated to learn and to their ability to creatively solve problems, according to Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, who wrote Musings on the Neurobiological and Evolutionary Origins of Creativity via a Developmental Analysis of One Child’s Poetry [PDF]. Her research tries to understand why emotions are so important to learning by examining what happens to brain functions.

One of the major reasons Dream Flight Adventures is such a powerful teaching tool—one that lasts with students for their entire lifetimes—is the powerful emotional impact our simulations create.  By raising the stakes and immersing students in an emotionally-demanding mission, they engage their left- and right-brains and form new mental connections that they wouldn’t otherwise make.  Also, by engaging all the students’ senses, their learning can be triggered and recalled in many ways down the road.

Not only does this emotional impact make the experience memorable, it also inspires creativity.

When a topic strikes a chord with a student it feels meaningful because the part of his brain firing is the same part that keeps him conscious and alive. It’s also the part of the brain responsible for novel, creative or new ideas.

“Creativity is representing some kind of relevant problem in a new way and making peopleunderstand it, and feel about it, and have some insight into something that matters,” Immordino-Yang said. She argues that creative moments are motivated by caring deeply about a subject. Furthermore, humans make meaning by relating new information to feelings, memories and other personal information to give it context.

The whole article is worth a read.  Check it out when you get a chance.

The Center for Creativity recently shined its spotlight on us in a recent posting.  Check it out!

The IKS Titan, which is set for its big public debut next week, got its first kickstart through an introduction facilitated by the Center for Creativity one year ago.  It’s been an incredible and eventful 12 months, and we can’t say enough about the fantastic work being done at the Center for Creativity.

Come one, come all.  Pull up a chair while I spin a yarn about the roots behind Dream Flight Adventures™ and the other branches that have grown out of it.

When I was just a wee little lad I had the special chance to attend a field trip at the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center, not too far from my hometown.  It was a magical experience that captured my imagination and never let go.  It was that moment and the events that followed that eventually led to the creation of Dream Flight Adventures today.

But I was not alone in experiencing the Space Center’s magic.  Over 300,000 other kids took a similar journey.

Some were inspired to become teachers, others scientists.  Some have become actors, and some have gone on to work for NASA.  And don’t forget the large group of kids who grew up and have started families of their own, telling their own children about the wonders that await them in the far reaches of space and their own imaginations.

As for me, I couldn’t get enough of the magic, so I decided to make more of it.  I’ve spent most of my life learning the skills and jumping through the hoops necessary to create these magical experiences and to share them with a new generation of children, including my own.  That’s where Dream Flight Adventures™ came from, in a nutshell.  The full story is much more interesting, but also much longer, and I’m afraid I don’t have enough popcorn at the moment.

But did you know that there are others out there who are recreating this magic too?  Oh yes!  There’s a new Space Education Center and museum that will be launching in the coming months.  Aware of the understated power of everyday people, the Space Education Center is filling its rocket tanks with the fuel from KickStarter.  There’s also an arts center that is adding a splash of simulator magic to its repertoire.  Both of these—as with the Christa McAuliffe Space Center—are based in Utah, so be sure to pay them a visit the next time you’re out west.

As for the rest of the world, who knows where the next magical installation will be?  Maybe it’ll be in your own community, and maybe it’ll be you who helps make it happen.  It’s a magical journey!  We love every minute of it, and we hope you’ll join us for the ride!