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http://marsbound.asu.edu/

Hi Everyone, I am Patty Rourke and I just want to say that this site is a great opportunity to review a lesson on Mars and to connect our students to recent NASA investigations. AND did you know that there is a public forum where we can discuss NASA resources as well as those provided by the Learning Center. Go ahead and reply to this post and we can share and compare ideas and work toward making our lessons more exciting for our students and out inquiry activities targeted to gathering and reflecting on data pertinent not only to Mars but to teaching about Earth Science. Hey, let's connect with one another. You can click on the Live Support Online icon in the right hand section of the screen or go to the NSTA learning Center Discussion arena. Welcome aboard.

Hi, So often middle school life science educators 'miss' teaching the subject that our students never grow tired of studying - Space Education!

My favorite Life Science / Space Science lesson is NASA's 'Lunar Plant Growth Module'. Go to the following website and you will be able to download a free teacher guide and view several video clips of the lesson and background knowledge for our students. This lesson utilizes the engineering design process, has outstanding inquiry recommendations, and captivated my students in their botany study like never before.

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/education/programs/national/nes/materials/lunar-plant-growth-index-nes.html

I would also like to add that this lesson integrates math and language arts - a perfect project to display during conferences or observation by an administrator!

Alyce

During my quest for Space Science / STEM support I discovered NEON.

NASA Educators Online Network is a free site that offers collaboration opportunities and STEM lessons. I browsed the site and think that NEON could easily become one more 'go to' spot for educators to share and receive Space Science education ideas.

http://neon.intronetworks.com/#

Alyce

When the Mars rover Opportunity descended into Endurance Crater in 2004, it discovered layer upon layer of rocks bearing evidence that they had once been drenched in water. Students will be fascinated when they compare and contrast rocks from Mars' surface and those found on Earth.

Connect to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for a website detailing the Mars Rover Mission. This site offers multimedia, links to additional NASA Mars related sites, lesson plans and student K-12 materials.

Attachments

Water Discovered in Mars' Rock Layers (External Website)

These NASA Sites are outstanding! From the links you will find below you or your students may connect to several Mars related simulations that include actual photography of Mar's surface features and actual NASA data. [color=purple] Mars Exploration Program http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm '' target="_blank"> http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm ' target="_blank"> http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm " target="_blank"> Mars Science Laboratory Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey Mars Exploration Rover [/color] Enjoy, Alyce

Thanks for all of the resources! In case you guys haven't heard of it, another great opportunity for students is to participate in the Mars Student Imaging Project. A link for it is below: http://marsed.mars.asu.edu/msip-home

The American Musuem of Natural History - see www.amnh.org - has some great short videos about Mars. Search in the science bulletins section.

Lisa and Jessica,
Thank you for checking our thread and listing two additional links for all of us to visit! Are any of you sensing a disappointment among your students as we become nearer to the final shuttle launch and continued cuts in national funding for our space program?

Many of my middle school students are discussing our government's space funding cuts, the anniversary of the Challenger disaster and our country's reliance on foreign countries to support and maintain a space program that they have grown to believe is 'American Ingenuity' driven.

I have attempted to bring additional resources, video clips and news articles to their attention that highlight the advances made through NASA's research in the medical and technology fields. Do any of you have ideas to 'celebrate' the future of NASA?

Thank you for thoughts and feedback, Alyce

Here is a link to a Archived web seminar: Virtual Labs. I loved this seminar. It provides a link to a program that allows you to download a digital electron microscope "slide" of Mars sand (and many other samples)that is interactive. You can zoom in/out and move around inside the slide boundaries. Some other slides that I have downloaded are Moon samples, meteorite samples, and space shuttle tile samples. I show them to the kids on my Smart board and then have the kids look at my NASA "simulated" Moon, "simulated" Mars, and actual Space Shuttle tile using hand lenses and microscopes. (I got my sames of the simulate Mars and Lunar sand by applying through NASA. They were free, I got them several years ago. I applied for the space shuttle tile last Fall and received it this past Spring. I only had to pay shipping and handling on that artifact.) The kids realizing that they are looking at real/authentic samples from the Virtual Lab downloads and they are themselves comparing them to NASA simulated samples are really impressed. Next in our curriculum sequence came weathering and erosion. How did a rock become sand? What characteristics will the sands being examined possess and why? It is great for inquiry at even a very young level. One warning....the program for the Virtual Lab is HUGE and takes time to load. Each "slide sample" is also large, slowing your computer down. I put everything that I wanted to view on a new flash drive to free up my computers memory. http://learningcenter.nsta.org/products/symposia_seminars/NES/webseminar7-2.aspx

The NASA Education Enterprise website has thousands of educational materials ranging over a vast number of topics, including resources on Mars. This link for NASA Mars resources includes educators' guides, lithographs, student activities, etc. The NASA education website is an excellent resource for teachers and informal educators who are looking for space and earth science related materials.

Another resource to take advantage of (for many topics) is the JASON Project. You can create a free account and then download curriculum, use online labs, etc. One of the best of the 'old' curriculum years was 'Exploring the Mysteries of Earth and Mars' and there are still many documents, teacher created activities and online labs that support it.

Check it out at JASON.org

I thought I'd try to revive an old topic. I recently had to do an activity in a Solar System Workshop where there were 2 teams and each team had to pick a mission whether it was to find out the type of geology was on Mars, if there is life on Mars, Whether or not humans can live on Mars, etc. Afterwards, students are given different cards with different options such as boosters, radiation detectors, different cameras with different unique features for their rover. Then they are given a budget since each instrument on the rover costs money. By the end of the activity, whichever team had spent the fewest money on their rover won (along with how much power, science points, and weight of each instrument). This is definitely complicated for young children, but it can definitely be done with younger children if given a less complicated version of making their own Mars rover

Thank you for sharing this resource. I have always wanted to do an activity where students work in teams to plan and organize "trips" to various destinations. However, all the activities that I found did not have enough structure. This resource seems to provide enough structure to guide the students along while allowing my students to be creative. Also, my students are very interested in Mars so this activity would be perfect for my class. Again, thank you for posting this resource!