From: edgett@esther.la.asu.edu (Ken Edgett)
Subject: AZ Mars K-12
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 10:04:23 -0700 (MST)
Greetings from the Arizona Mars K-12 Education Program I decided to get myself on the Live from Mars discussion list so that I can (a) hear what you are up to, and (b) share things that I am aware of, as they come up. We have been doing K-12 outreach centered on Mars exploration since mid-1992. We conduct teacher workshops, do classroom visits (in AZ), kids visit our facilities, we do workshops at science teacher conventions, etc. We also have a newsletter, a WWW site, and more. Our WWW site is at: http://esther.la.asu.edu/asu_tes/ and it includes some of our educational material-- although we are a bit behind on it at the moment (by about 1 month). We have worked with Planetary Society's MARSLINK and RED ROVER projects, plus Challenger Center's MARS CITY ALPHA. Our most recent K-12 teacher workshop was this past Saturday, August 24th, and it included a special appearance by Allan Treiman, an expert on the ALH84001 meteorite-- we even got to SEE a thin section of *the rock*. We will be doing cool Mars stuff at the NSTA Regional in Phoenix October 17-19 (You really should come to it), plus we'll be at the Washington Science Teachers Assoc. meeting in Port Angeles Nov. 1-2, for those of you in the Pacific NW area. This fall we will debut RED PLANET CONNECTION, which is basically a quarterly newsletter for kids about Mars exploration-- it includes activities, cross-disciplinary suggestions, news/updates, career path info., and more. There are 3 levels, generally they are geared toward K-2, 3-5, and 6-8 grades. RED PLANET CONNECTION will be mailed in September to (a) our mailing list, (b) Planetary Society's old MarsLink list, and (c) the Arizona Sci Teachers Assoc. list. If you want to be on our mailing list for future announcments, newsletters, etc., send us your name, best mailing address, school name/city, grades and specialties you teach, phone nos., email address, and we'll put you in our database. Those of you from the July Live from Mars conference who sent us $5.00 checks to get our 1996-1997 Education Supplement/Guide are already being added to our general mailing list (no further action required). By the way, those guides went out in this morning's mail. For those of you going "what's this guide?" Here is the info: The 1996-1997 Arizona Mars K-12 Education Supplement is our fourth annual guide for teachers. It pulls together, all in one place, a lot of information' about the upcoming Mars missions and Mars, plus an extensive list of resources such as slides, videos, maps, etc. The guide includes b&w pictures that are generally 81/2 x11 in size, so that you can easily photocopy them to make transparencies to show in the classroom. The guide includes some suggestions for teaching concepts about the Mars missions, plus nifty facts. One thing that is pretty neat that we added this year was a description- by Brian Cooper of JPL-- of how Brian will drive the Sojourner rover on Mars from his computer at JPL. The guide is $5.00, but you can photocopy it all you want once you have it. The charge simply covers what it cost us to print it. Checks MUST be made out to "Arizona State University." We also have a cool t-shirt for $15.00--- see our WWW site for a color picture of the shirt. We only have XL sizes available. For the past several years, I have had a list of educators that I regularly send email updates about Mars and Mars education-- I am encouraging my old list of folks to join this LfM discussion group, and from now on I will post my information here, as well. Oh- if anyone is wondering, I am a Mars scientist and I also direct our K-12 outreach program (which I started as a grad student). Our facility at Arizona State University is set up to support the opperations of the Mars Global Surveyor's Thermal Emission Spectrometer. We got started on the outreach back in the Mars Observer days. My research interests center mainly on the geomorphology of Mars, with a main focus on aeolian features (aeolian = wind-related), such as sand dunes. I have written research papers on a variety of Mars topics- volcanoes, craters, soils, sand dunes, outflow channels, etc. Sincerely, Dr. Ken Edgett Director, Arizona Mars K-12 Education Program Department of Geology Arizona State University Box 871404 Tempe, AZ 85287-1404 USA