According to webinar host Tom Estill, a NASA education specialist with 25 years of experience as a middle and high school science teacher, as far as NASA is concerned about MSL, "It's a big deal."
Well said, Mr. Estill. :)
Estill works at Goddard Spaceflight Center in Maryland, amidst 10,000 other NASA employees, including hundreds of astronomers, cosmologists, physicists, biologist, ecologist, geologist, botanists and more.
The first resource Estill showed us was Mars Quest Online: http://www.marsquestonline.org/ This site is a cooperative effort of several entities. There are a number of educational tools on the site, but the webinar host recommended the "Drive a Rover" as the top attraction. It's a neat game where you have to send a series of commands to the rover to get it to move and collect Mars rocks. It would be a great logic and sequencing activity for the kids (and me too!). It also teaches about degrees and estimate. He suggested it could even be played as a competition, to see who could complete a successful sequence first. Fun!
Estill showed us a cool part of the Jet Propulsion Lab home page. If you click on the "Missions" option, you'll get a drop down menu, from which you choose "Current" and then you get to see the latest pictures coming down from the Red Planet. Right now, it's just Opportunity phoning home, so to speak, but soon, MSL will be beaming images back, too.
He suggests rather than navigating your way to the media images, you select the RAW images. Those are the latest pictures. For instance, here's the newest Navigation Cam photo from Opportunity, taken on the rover's 3121st day on Mars.
He also showed us Rock Around the World: http://ratw.asu.edu/ On the front page of the site, it says: Scientists Need Your Help! Mars Scientists are asking students from around the world to help them understand the red planet. Send in a rock collected by you or your classroom from your region of the world and we will use a special tool like the one on the Mars Exploration Rovers to tell you what it's made of." (In case you're wondering, the sample goes to scientists at Arizona State University.) Apparently after sending our rock and a data sheet in, we'll get a certificate of participation in the program, and our rock's analysis will be on a Web site.
I can't wait to do that with the kids!
Estill said coverage of MSL's landing will start on NASA TV at 8:30 p.m. Pacific time. He says there's a possibility they wont' know if it has landed successfully or not until about an hour after it has landed. I'm not sure he had the latest info, frankly. I had heard that before, too, but that was PRIOR to the successful re-positioning of the Mars Odyssey Spacecraft yesterday. With Odyssey's trajectory correction maneuver, it is now in a position to be the assisting satellite to transmit the first signals from Curiosity shortly after landing.
We were also pointed in the direction of a collection of "all sorts of rad activiites" about the Mars Science Laboratory mission on a Web site called Summer of Innovation Mars Exploration site. Estill called it some of the best Mars educational activities that are out there.
He also showed us the Curiosity home page, of course. There, under the multimedia heading, I learned there is a brand new video about MSL called "The Science of Curiosity." Here it is for your viewing pleasure:
On the "Events" part of the MSL site, you can find you state and see what's going on to celebrate Curiosity's landing. On the Mars for Students part of the site, there are activities, including paper templates to build Mars observers or rovers.
Estill also told webinar participants about a couple of live-in-person type resources, one being NASA's Solar System Ambassador Program. It's comprised of about 450 volunteers across the country who are trained by JPL engineers to bring to the public the work done by planetary explorers.
Another group that does public outreach is the NASA Night Sky Network, a nationwide coalition of amateur astronomy clubs bringing the science, technology, and inspiration of NASA's missions to the general public. Network members share their time and telescopes to provide others with unique astronomy experiences at science museums, observatories, classrooms, and under the real night sky.
Oh, and have I mentioned that the Mars Science Laboratory will be landing soon? Today, the rover's two lithium ion rechargeable batteries are charging to 100% using the cruise-stage solar array. Countdown to landing: 12 days. Eep!
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