Preparing for the April 24th broadcast

From: Jan Wee <jwee@mail.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Preparing for the April 24th broadcast
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 12:29:20 -0500

Dear discuss-lfm members,

Are you preparing your students for the upcoming April 24th 
broadcast, "Cruising Between the Planets"?  Evaluation
studies show that students who have been engaged in the related
hands-on activities and have utilized the LFM web site
gain much greater understanding of concepts presented in
the live telecasts.  We hope that you are tapping the
online and print resources available to you.

The online and print LFM Teacher's Guide suggests hands-on 
activities which are easy and fun to implement in your classroom.  
For example, Activity 2.1 -- Observing Mars in the Night Sky -- is the
first of several activities suggested.  Speaking of the night sky...

Here's what the SKY WATCH folks say about Mars watching in
April...

Mars is the brilliant orange-yellow beacon in the east, looking 
like a little piece of campfire near Leo's hindquarters. Late
evening is an excellent time to turn a telescope on this planet, 
tiny as it is. Mars will won't appear this big for another two
years. 

Check out the SKY ONLINE web site for a full April sky watcher's
update at:

        http://www.skypub.com/whatsup/apr97sky.html


Sister Dianne Mollica of New Jersey encouraged students
to enjoy Mars and Hale-Bopp via observations.  Their resulting
web page is now linked into the Live From Mars Student Gallery
and also via their url:

        http://aesop.rutgers.edu/~dmollica/skyview.html

Perhaps the work of Julia and Grace will also inspire your
students to do some Mars Watching! (and Hale-Bopp, too)

Other activities that will help you prepare your students
for the upcoming broadcast include:

        Activity 2.1 Part 1  -- Modeling Martian Motion
        Activity 2.1 Part 2 - Mars: Off the Charts - until you 
                put it there
        Activity 2.2 Reading the Shapes of Volcanoes on Earth and 
                Mars 
        Activity 2.3  Rovers from Junk & Center of Mass Demo
                and Powering the Rovers

These activities are found online and in our print guide (pages 27-39) 
-- see http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/teachers/tg/index.html  for the 
online guide.


If you have done some of these activities in YOUR classroom perhaps
you could share your feedback via this forum.  If you have used
other related activities preparing students for the April
24th broadcast, you are encouraged to share these also with your
online colleagues!

Jan Wee, moderator