Posted on 01/28/2004 10:50:59 PM PST by ambrose
Deseret Morning News, Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Going to Mars
Space exploration gets students excited about study of science
By Jillian Doria and Tasha Sotomayor
Deseret Morning News
OREM — If you plan to live on Mars, you might want to get used to eating quinoa or living with endoliths before you head out.
 The Sojourner Rover was part of the Mars Pathfinder mission that landed at Ares Vallis on Mars in 1997. It tested nearby rocks to determine their mineral content.  Image by Shaun Watson |
Going to the moon isn't as exciting because "our parents went there," said Nicole Farnsworth, 20, a member of the BYU Mars Research Team. "But to say that we are going to Mars, a place no man has gone before, it's more exciting, and I'm going to be there."
Quinoa is a plant similar to wheat and is mostly grown in Boliva. The plant grows best with carbon dioxide, which is what makes up most of the Mars atmosphere, Farnsworth said. Endoliths are living bacteria found inside sandstone, rocks similar to the ones that cover the surface of Mars. This adds to the evidence that there may be life on Mars, said Doug Archer, team leader of the research group.
Archer and Farnsworth aren't the only ones excited about Mars exploration. Mars has leaped into the spotlight in the past six months, grabbing attention first as it passed closer to the Earth than ever before, and then again as the NASA rover "Spirit" sent back never-before-seen images of the red planet and President Bush announced a plan to put the first human on Mars.
The excitement is a boon to educators, who have used Mars mania as a launching pad to teach students of all ages more about space science.
They hope some strong educational initiative may inspire young students today to be the next explorers of the space frontier.
"The people who eventually go to Mars won't be my generation; it's going to be the students," said David Black, an instructor of multimedia technology at the Mountainland Applied Technology College. "NASA realizes that education is vital for its continued success. If Bush's initiative is going to happen, it's going to require education. . . . I see education as being vital to this initiative."
 Students in Darrin Johnson's class at Wasatch Elementary show off galaxy they painted on their wall. Dan Lund |
"I think that I really opened their eyes that they're not limited to working for just Sony PlayStation," Black said. "3-D modeling is what NASA needs."
Black's group of students is among the 54 schools nationwide that are part of the Mars Exploration Student Data Team. Most of the students are in high school, and MATC is the only school in Utah participating in the project.
The whole project is made of up three main groups: one group, called Rover Watch, keeps an eye on the Martian weather to determine if it is dangerous for the rovers. (A second rover, Opportunity, landed on Mars Saturday.)
The second group is Storm Watch, tasked with analyzing the weather to determine if it might obscure the landing site. The third group, Orbit Watch, uses orbital photos to make 3-D maps of the terrain.
Black's classes are part of the Orbit Watch group, but they are the only ones in the group making the 3-D maps. And two of Black's multimedia classes have been doing that since Spirit landed.
The class is currently mapping the three main landing sites on Mars — Gusev Crater, where the Spirit landed; the Meridiani Planum, where Opportunity was sent; and Isidis Planitia, where Beagle 2 will land.
The maps will help determine the weather patterns in geological features of the terrain, as well as how the landing sites are geographically different from each other.
The Mars Exploration Student Data team is unique because NASA is giving high school students access to non-public, real-life data to solve problems that happen in space.
 The Mars 2001 Odyssey probe has been orbiting Mars since 2001 and is a robotic geologist, studying the minerals and elements on the surface. Image By Renn Smith |
Even the people who created the program didn't want to tell the students how reports should be done, how to analyze the data or what the answer would be. This makes learning science more authentic because students are discovering the answers for themselves.
"It's risky trusting high school students," said Steve James, 18, a Pleasant Grove senior who is part of the multimedia class. "But I think students are the future. The earlier students start, the more leaders (will be created for NASA)."
At Pioneer Elementary school in West Valley City, fifth-graders are creating a Mars of their own.
Donnie Olson's class has been busy creating a backdrop and landscape of the planet for their own in-class exploration. On Wednesday, the students will sit at computers and guide little rovers with tiny cameras through an obstacle course similar to the surface found on Mars.
Principal Paul McCarty said the students have been working with the Junior Engineering Program at the University of Utah to build the Martian terrain out of papier-mache — and whatever else they can find.
Darrin Johnson brought more than Mars into his sixth-grade classroom at Wasatch Elementary School in Provo — he brought the universe.
"Kids learn a lot better when it's hands-on," he said. "The kids sponge-painted a galaxy onto the walls. I make learning as real-life as possible."
Johnson started to bring in daily articles from newspapers about President Bush's plan to put men on Mars. The students started interactively editing them by taking what the paper had written and turning the story into a much smaller, condensed version.
The sixth-graders were also assigned to write a persuasive essay on whether or not they agree with the United States' decision to spend $820 million to send men to Mars.
The students have yet to complete their largest assignment of the year — they are required to write an essay based on astronomy. They must combine current events, artwork and research in the paper.
 The Mars Global Surveyor has been orbiting Mars since 1997, taking detailed photos and altitude readings. Image by Colby Haag |
When he taught the third grade, he turned his classroom into a cave using 1,500 feet of butcher paper. Instead of just talking about caves, students felt the caves, Johnson said.
"When I leave the school," he said, "I guess they'll have quite a bit of repainting to do."
Sulinda Moore, at Canyon View Elementary in Salt Lake City, has just finished a sixth-grade unit on the solar system. Besides classroom discussion, her students participated in different types of experiments, pretending to be astronauts on a spacecraft.
Moore said a retired Brighton High School teacher also drives a space trailer to elementary schools, setting up different stations for experiments to be performed. The trailer has a cockpit for the pilot and navigator, giving students a simulated space experience, Moore said.
"A lot of people think, 'Why should we study space?,' but we live in space," Black said. "We are part of a planet traveling through space. What happens out there in space affects us."
E-mail: jdoria@desnews.com, tsotomayor@desnews.com
© 2004 Deseret News Publishing Company
This is the biggest spinoff possible from the Space Program.
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