Are We Alone?
Is there life on Mars?Copyright NASA, Mars Curiosity Image Gallery
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/images/index.html
Accessed August 9, 2020
The year is 2032 and your class has successfully achieved a manned mission to Mars! After several explorations of the Red Planet, one question is still being debated: "Is there life on Mars?" The class is challenged with the task of establishing criteria to help look for signs of life. Student explorers conduct a scientific experiment in which they evaluate three "Martian" soil samples and determine if any contain life.
Engineers design equipment and devices that can explore environments that are unsafe for people, such as inside an unexplored cave, many miles under the ocean, inside a fiery volcano, or in outer space. In looking for signs of life (water?) on Mars, engineers designed rovers armed with many scientific instruments to investigate specific rock and soil targets. A microscopic imager provided close-up images of rocks, an alpha-particle-x-ray-spectrometer gathered information about the elements making up the rocks, and a rock abrasion tool ground the rock or soil surface.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Define the characteristics of a living thing.
- Explain why some living things survive better in certain places than other living things.
- Systematically investigate and analyze soil samples.
- Record observations and conclude if life on Mars exists utilizing the given simulated Martian soil samples.
- Explain why engineers and scientists are interested in being able to find life in soil samples.