by Koren Wetmore

Astrophysicist Lorann Parker wants to instruct you in ways your science teacher only dreamed about.

Your classroom will be a $1.7 million observatory and science center stocked with $4 million in equipment. Your instructors will be scientists conducting active research. Your tuition will be a modest entry fee to the Mountain Skies Astronomical Society Center, planned for a six-acre site behind Rim of the World High School off Highway 18 in Lake Arrowhead.

It's not just a pipe dream. The project will begin construction when the final $80,000 has been raised, which Parker estimates will be sometime next year. "This has never been done before. We've designed a modern research facility that will be open to the public with the tools and interpretive services to help them comprehend the science," she said.

Parker will achieve this with help from her partners: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Scripps Institute, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Southern California Earthquake Center--not to mention the 3,000 members of the Mountain Skies Astronomical Society. Their support will provide students with access to a planetarium, electron microscopes, telescopes and even rocks from the moon, Mars and Earth's Stonehenge.

An onsite global positioning system will monitor earth movement and report results via satellite to JPL...

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