Planning the Future on Mars

My 3rd/4th grade reading class has been spending the last trimester exploring space. The students are enjoying this unit so much! They started their exploration of space by reading articles about the Earth's atmosphere as well as force and gravity. In order to learn about how our world is able to explore space, the students studied rockets and the International Space Station (ISS). The students read an article from NASA about the International Space Station and listened to the kid-friendly podcast, Brains-On, that included an interview with astronaut, Don Pettit, discussing his time on the ISS. This turned into a great opportunity to teach the students about firsthand and secondhand accounts. They showed their understanding of the similarities and differences between the two sources by completing a Venn-diagram.

The students are now taking their learned knowledge and applying it to a project. The students have been put into groups. They have given the role to put humans on Mars by the mid-2030's. Their task is to design a base for a twelve month stay on the planet's surface. In order to be successful a great deal of planning and preparation has been happening in our classroom. The students have been taking into account what they have learned about the ISS, as well as gathering information about Mars and the distance between this planet and the Sun. The students have partnered up to become base designers, food engineers, clothing engineers, transportation engineers, and power engineers. The students quickly learned on their own that although they have been assigned different tasks, they have needed to work together to appropriately plan a successful stay on Mars. They started by brainstorming questions they had about Mars in order to help guide their research. Currently they are sketching out their design plans based on the research they found. Soon, the students will begin to build their design prototypes. This activity has been a fun and exciting way to end the year!