We watched Mars earlier in the year when it came so close to Earth and burned so brightly in our night sky, and probably wondered what wonders these new rovers would find. The pictures have been spectacular, and even if Spirit remains in "critical condition" it has already sent a multitude of information back.
So, how will you make use of all of this information in your classroom? Your students are probably as excited as you are about these many changes. I remember how mesmerized my students were when the first Mars Pathfinder, and its Sojourner rover, sent us amazing views in 1997: http://mars.sgi.com/MPF/index0.html From what I've seen, Spirit has sent even more spectacular views!
You can track the progress of Spirit and Opportunity at the NASA website. They have set up a special Rover site: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/overview/ complete with links for teachers, students and kids. Your students can even view the latest photos and raw images as they are transmitted back to us here on Earth. Just click on the press link and scroll to the Images section, or click here: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ There are some neat video clips also.
The kids section: http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/funzone_... has many fin activities, so if you have Internet access, let you students have fun with this section of NASA's site. There are games, activities and a special section about the Mars rover mission.
Another site which has a lot if information about the planets is Welcome to the Planets: http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/welcome.... Its pictures are great!
When my students were studying the planets, we produces a class book that tied together much of wheat we'd learned in Science along with writing and Language Arts. You might want to focus just on Mars and do something similar. In our book (Called Tales from Mrs. Taylor's Solar System!!) students had submitted three different pieces of writing. The first was a factual short report on the planet that they had chosen. Since we were doing all nine, there was some variety, but if you are focusing on Mars, each child will need to research just that planet.
The second piece was a fantasy creative writing piece on an imaginary trip to their planets. Of course, the "science" had to be factual - for example, if the planet's day was only 10 hours long, they couldn't "fantasize" that it was 24 hours. But what they saw and who they met on the planet could be completely creative. Their stories were great!
Go To Page: 1 2
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Irene Taylor's Tips for Teachers topic, please visit the Discussions page.