7 Ways To Teach About Mars
Connecting learning opportunities to current events with your kids is one of the best ways to bring STEM education to life. Join in the excitement of the science and engineering feats that are happening RIGHT NOW at NASA! Drive home the importance of building STEM skills and how engineers work to solve problems for all of humanity.
Now is one of the most exciting times to witness NASA missions! On February 18, 2021, NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will touch down on the Red Planet. Perseverance is NASA's most advanced Mars rover to date and provides a multitude of opportunities to engage your students with related activities! The Perseverance mission launched on July 30, 2020, and will continue NASA’s search for signs of past microbial life in the Jezero Crater. Want ideas on how to get your kids excited about this epic mission? Read about some of our favorite STEM activities about Mars below.
1. Engage with videos!
First, show your kids what the Perseverance mission is all about! Watch the mission trailer video (Perseverance Arrives at Mars: Feb. 18, 2021 ). Then explore the series of videos that NASA created to answer some of the most frequently asked questions about Mars, called Mars in a Minute. Some questions in these 60-second videos include:
How do you choose a landing site on Mars?
How hard is it to land on Mars?
How do rovers drive on Mars?
How did Mars get such enormous mountains?
2. Explore in Augmented Reality!
Did you know that on-board the Perseverance rover is the first helicopter attempting to fly on another planet? Use augmented reality to see both Perseverance and the helicopter, Ingenuity, up close and take a selfie with your friends. Download NASA’s Spacecraft AR app on iOS or Android.
While you are snapping selfies, create fun photos with the Mars photo booth! Put yourself on the launch pad, on the Red Planet, or next to the rover!
3. Land Like Perseverance!
Crater Challenge- Students use the engineering design process and explore the forces of motion in this activity. They must find a way to place a ball “rover” in a cup at the center of a 6-foot diameter circle without entering the circle. The Perseverance rover will be landing in the Jezero Crater on the Martian surface. Challenge your students with attempting this related mission!
Lander challenge - The combination of marshmallows (or ping pong balls) and space exploration makes this a winning STEM challenge! With the Space Lander Challenge, student teams build a lander using the Engineering Design Process to keep two marshmallow "astronauts" inside a cup as it is dropped from various heights. Using straws, index cards, and mini marshmallows or cotton balls, students apply concepts of shock-absorption, drag forces, and stability, to create and test designs. A surprise ending challenge helps students learn from their failures too! Discuss the strenuous landing of the Perseverance rover as your kids complete this exciting engineering challenge.
4. Code A Martian Adventure!
Mars Rover Driver Board Game: In this board game lesson, students learn basic computer programming skills by playing the role of a Mars rover scientist.
Create a Mars rover exploration game using the Scratch programming language. Your students will create a drivable rover and complete a teacher-determined number of game elements provided by NASA!
5. Make a Rover!
Circuit Rover- Ever tried making paper circuits? Applying the knowledge of basic circuitry with a NASA rover mission is one of my favorite design challenges! Perfect for in-person or distance learning, students are tasked with a mission from NASA to design and build a rover to transport rock samples on Mars! They must use a vibrating motor and coin cell battery to power a mini rover for this activity. Trust me, this is so much fun!
You can also do this activity by showing your kids this video where a real engineer provides the science behind circuits and rovers and introduces the engineering design challenge!
Pi Day Rover- Incorporate the engineering design process into your classroom or afterschool program with this Rover Challenge. Students build a rubber band powered rover to complete an exciting mission. They will then practice using Pi to analyze their design with imaginative math extension questions. Use this activity to celebrate Pi Day on March 14th or to discuss some of the challenges that real engineers had to overcome in designing the Mars Perseverance Rover.
6. Fly Like Ingenuity!
The Mars Ingenuity helicopter is known as a “technology demonstration.” Humans have never attempted powered flight outside of Earth before. The atmosphere on Mars is much different and thus the engineering to create a working helicopter on Mars is much different than doing it here. Replicate this marvel of engineering by creating your own Mars Ingenuity Helicopter.
Make a Paper Mars Helicopter: Build a paper helicopter, and then see if you can improve the design like NASA engineers did when making the first helicopter for Mars. This is a free lesson from NASA with a teacher guide and free activity template!
7. Design a Colony on Mars!
Students can learn about Mars, brainstorm and research design solutions for food, water, energy, and other critical systems, and then bring it all together by building a colony model from recycled materials! This is the perfect way to take your STEM or STEAM program to the next level with a project-based STEM challenge! Now updated for distance learning!
Designing a Mars Colony is a real multidisciplinary project as students consider both keeping humans alive and happy. How will colonists get food? What is the Martian environment like? What happens during a dust storm? How will colonists stay entertained? Your students will be engaged and learn a lot about our own planet while exploring living on Mars. Learn more about this amazing project here.
Interested in more Mars activities?
Bring the exciting engineering and science of this mission to students in your institution and at home with the Mars 2020 STEM Toolkit from NASA. These STEM lessons and do-it-yourself projects covering topics such as biology, geology, physics, mathematics, engineering, coding, and language arts.
For more Mars mission STEM activities for your classroom, check out our list here. Make sure to follow us on social media as we cover the latest NASA Mars mission highlights!
