# Presentation: 759863

## Slide 1

## Our Lady of Good Counsel 5th Graders go to Mars2008

**Mrs. Steel’s 5****th**** grade class researches, investigates, and designs strategies to send a colony of 100 people to Mars**

## Led by Mrs. Marcie Steel and Mrs. Renee Allen, our two Science and Social Studies classes of 52 students were broken up into 6 specialist teams. 

**The Specialist Teams**

## The Mission

**Our mission is to help NASA find ways to set up a community of 100 people on Mars by the year 2030.**** **
**Our first step was to break up our two classes of 52 students into 6 groups of mission specialists. Those specialists researched many things including: gravity and weather, food and shelter, oxygen and water, community and  employment and culture on Mars.  **

## Gravity and Weather Mission Specialist Team had to....

- Also think of ways to create or simulate their own weather on Mars.

**Gravity and Weather ****Mission Specialist Team had to....**

## Employment and Community Mission Specialist Teamhad to.... 

- Come up with things for people to do.
- The kinds of jobs they may have
- Create communities
- Provide things that they value about their community and how they could recreate that on Mars

## The Rocket Building and Transportation Mission Specialist Teamhad to...

- Solve the dilemma of visiting Mars during its period of revolution (687 Earth days)
- Decide if they would either stay for 3 days or for a year until Earth and Mars line up well enough for that window of transport to open up again.
- Figure out ways to produce fuel to get home?
- Design and build spacecraft or Rover to get around Mars.

## The Culture and the Arts Mission Specialist Teamhad to.... 

**The Culture and the Arts**** Mission Specialist Team****had to....**

- Think of the culture we enjoy today on Earth. Think about the arts and their importance to us on Earth.
- Decide what would be important as far as culture and the arts go on Mars.
- Find ways to do things on Mars for fun.
- Find ways for people to unwind and enjoy culture, the arts, fashion, entertainment, etc.

## The Oxygen and Water Mission Specialist Teamhad to...

- Find ways to access or produce oxygen and water on Mars
- Find ways to best use the main gas in the atmosphere on Mars (carbon dioxide.)
- Find out if the water they recently found on Mars can be used effectively for their colony.
- Find other ways to produce water on Mars.
- Find other ways to produce Oxygen on Mars

## The Food and Shelter Mission Specialist Teamhad to... 

- Find ways to produce food on Mars.
- How to best use Carbon Dioxide on the planet to produce food or crops.
- Decide if there is any soil on Mars that can be used for food crops.

## Mission Accomplished!!

## Gravity and Weather Mission Specialist Team 1

## Gravity and Weather Team 2

## Rocket Building and Transportation

## Transportation and Fuel

## Mars: Transportation and Fuel	
	On Mars most people don’t know how to get transportation or fuel. This group has found out some ways possible. Solar powered transportation may be an option. Solar powered is a fancy word for powered by sun or energy from the sun. If we were on Mars the sun could power a rover so we can get around Mars. Since Mars is made up of about 95.32% of carbon dioxide and even less than 1% of oxygen and maybe a small amount of water vapor it would be difficult to make fuels there to power a rocket or rover.		

- 	On Mars most people don’t know how to get transportation or fuel. This group has found out some ways possible. Solar powered transportation may be an option. Solar powered is a fancy word for powered by sun or energy from the sun. If we were on Mars the sun could power a rover so we can get around Mars. Since Mars is made up of about 95.32% of carbon dioxide and even less than 1% of oxygen and maybe a small amount of water vapor it would be difficult to make fuels there to power a rocket or rover.

## Oxygen and Water Team 1

## Oxygen and Water Team 2

**Oxygen and Water Team 2**

## Food and Shelter Team 1

## Food and Shelter

- Space Food
- Many people are curious about what astronauts eat in space. NASA provides appetizing food while astronauts are living in orbit. NASA space food scientists are developing an Advanced Food System that will keep Mars explorers fed.
- Shelter on Mars
- The Mars Exploration Rovers have weathered two drab winters on the Martian surface, and mission managers are already looking ahead to yet a third chilly season. All this from a mission that was only designed to last 90 days.
- The Spirit rover is searching for a spot to stick it out during the upcoming _[Martian winter](http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/060317_spirit_update.html)__, which will last from March 2008 through October 2008, according to a statement from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif._

## Although Mars has a tilt similar to Earth's, Martian seasons last longer because the planet takes almost twice as long to circle the Sun—almost 687 Earth days.

"When you're talking about the rovers surviving winter on Mars, planning many months in the future is really important," said Steve Squyres, principal scientist of the Mars Exploration Rover team at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. "But it's too soon to tell where we might situate them.“

- "When you're talking about the rovers surviving winter on Mars, planning many months in the future is really important," said Steve Squyres, principal scientist of the Mars Exploration Rover team at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. "But it's too soon to tell where we might situate them.“

## Science on a hill

	The solar-powered robots take an energy hit during the dim conditions, Squyres explained.
	"The sun gets very low in the sky, giving us a lot less solar power to work with," Squyres said. Fewer gusts of wind are around to clean dust from the rovers' solar panels gathered during recent dust storms, he added, which compounds the problem.
	So how do the rovers survive the winter while still doing plenty of science, as they did in 2004 and 2006?
		“We try and park them on a broad, north-facing slope that helps them gather more sunlight," Squyres said. Scientists not only prefer a good slope, but a large and scientifically interesting one. "During the winter, it's essentially science on a hill," Squyres said. "If we're stuck on a small slope, we're much more limited in what we can investigate." 

- 	The solar-powered robots take an energy hit during the dim conditions, Squyres explained.
- 	"The sun gets very low in the sky, giving us a lot less solar power to work with," Squyres said. Fewer gusts of wind are around to clean dust from the rovers' solar panels gathered during _[recent dust storms](http://www.space.com/news/070829_rovers_update.html)_, he added, which compounds the problem.
- 	So how do the rovers survive the winter while still doing _[plenty of science](http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/top10_rover_discovery.html)_, as they did in 2004 and 2006?
- 		“We try and park them on a broad, north-facing slope that helps them gather more sunlight," Squyres said. Scientists not only prefer a good slope, but a large and scientifically interesting one. "During the winter, it's essentially science on a hill," Squyres said. "If we're stuck on a small slope, we're much more limited in what we can investigate."

## Food and Shelter Team 2

**Food and Shelter Team 2**

## FOOD AND SHELTER

-                 _FOOD_
- Solar powered microwave *put in a packet and it cooks into real food
- Life supply of water
-                 _SHELTER_
- Engine powered dome with air consumed
- Houses made out of gravel
- We know that the temperature on Mars is very cold -81 degrees F, so the engine powered dome would have to be very warm. We also found Mars Statistics, which includes its oxygen and more. This is located on our poster.

## Employment and Community and Culture and the Arts

## Slide 26

## Employment and Community Team 1

**Employment and**** Community Team 1**

## Employment and Community Team 2

## Imagine Mars	

- Our Mission was a successful one.
- We worked well together on our teams, and the ideas and suggestions flowed easily.
- We enjoyed thinking into the future and imagining all the possibilities of how we could survive on Mars.
- The most important lesson we learned is that we can work well together. We respected each other’s input and worked hard to make our ideas work.
- Thank you! Mrs. Marcie Steeland Mrs. Renee AllenOur Lady of Good Counsel SchoolMoorestown, NJ