A Close-Up Look at the Red Planet
Wed, Oct 17, 2012 1:25 AM
Exploring The Red Planet
“A Close-Up Look at the Red Planet” is a bit advanced for my kindergarteners, but I couldn’t resist a look because of the recent mission of Spirit and Opportunity. This SciGuide links users to internet opportunities that can assist teachers with connecting content related to Mars and our exploration of the planet. The sites provide activities and lessons for classroom use. The SciGuide focuses on three themes, those of “Evidence of Extinct Life,” “Evidence of Ancient Climates,” and “Habitats on Mars.” “Evidence of Extinct Life” focuses on two sub-themes, “Ancient Life on Mars” and “Fossils on Mars.” Both have a number of websites that provide lesson plans and experiments that demonstrate how and why we can speculate about life on Mars. “Evidence of Ancient Climates” has three sub-themes: “Evidence of Ancient Oceans,” “Fossilized Algae,” and Studying Ancient Climates.” The last one, “Habitats on Mars,” has two sub-themes: “Environmental Factors for Life on Mars” and “Viking Lander Data.” Selecting the links within any of the themes takes you immediately to a great deal of information, a lot of lesson plans, and other material that adds to the teacher’s knowledge and gives you ideas for ways to convey this information to students of many ages. I love the recipe for experiments in “Planets in a Bottle.” The only improvement that could be made to this SciGuide is more resources, even though there are already enough to keep teachers busy for months.