Aimee Hall's class designs and builds Mars rover models
Description
We are from JFK Middle School in Northampton, MA. These 8th grade science
students worked on creating rovers after completing the introductory "Live
from Mars" activities, including watching the Countdown video.
This project was based on the article "Mars Exploratory Vehicles" by Thea
L. Canzio, Larry A. Lebofsky, and Nancy R. Lebofsky. This article
appeared in the February '97 edition of Science Scope.
In this project small groups of students plan a mission to accomplish a
specific scientific task on Mars. They must conduct Internet research to
find the information they will need to successfully plan the mission.
Then they select a landing sight and design a vehicle to accomplish the
task. Next they build a model of the vehicle. Finally the group must
present their ideas to the class and defend their plan.
Each group of students received their own task. For example: You must
look for fossils of microscopic, ancient life in the river beds and
canyons of Mars. The vehicle must be able to photograph samples taken
from sites and perform some analysis of the samples.
The group members began researching their topic using classroom magazine
articles, books, and material I had printed out from the Internet. Once
they had a general idea of what they would need to do, they broke their
mission up into 3 areas: mobility, instrumentation, and landing. Each
person in the group became responsible for one of these areas, with the
support of the other group members.
We then spent 2 class periods doing Internet research on specific
questions the group had developed. I suggested the following sites for
their search.
Live from Mars
Weather, climate and life on Mars FAQ
http://humbabe.arc.nasa.gov/mgcm/faq/faq.html
Center for Martian Exploration
http://cmex-www.arc.nasa.gov/
Mars Multi-scale Map
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/homepage.htm
An Introduction to Mars
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/mars.htm
The Geological History of Mars
http://cmex-www.arc.nasa.gov/Exo_Strat/Docs/state.html
Students developed specifications for mobility, landing and
instrumentation. Then they invented specific proposals to fulfill their
specifications. Once they had completed a landing site proposal and
vehicle design, they began building a model of their vehicle.
Finally they presented their proposal to the class. Their grade was
dependent on their final presentation. Class members critiqued each
proposal and evaluated its chance of success.
