Mars study units can help kids better understand all of the firsts that will be happening when Perseverance touches down.
It’s a nail-biter and expected to be one of the most precise landings ever attempted. On Feb. 18, 2021, NASA’s most sophisticated craft to date will gently land on the red planet, if all goes as expected.
The rover Perseverance has an estimated time of arrival on Mars of 3:55 p.m. EST. It left Cape Canaveral, Florida in late July to travel 292.5 million miles to search for signs of ancient life on Mars.
The rover’s destination on Mars is the Jezero Crater, an ancient lake that had water flowing along its banks 3.9 billion years ago. It will search for microfossils in the soil and the rocks of the vast Jezero Crater. The conditions on Mars were similar to Earth’s billions of years ago. So what happened? NASA wants to know. Did life simply die off, or did it seek shelter underground?
This rover landing is filled with firsts. Ingenuity will be the first craft to fly on Mars. The helicopter will unfold from Perseverance to gather research. And, a contemporary first, the landing will be featured in Spanish!
However, it’s going to be a bit crowded on the surface of the red planet. The European Space Agency (ESA) and Russia’s Roscosmos and the Mars 2020 mission of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) also launched rovers last July to land on Mars this week.
Mars Study Units
NASA Mars Exploration Rovers – Tune into NASA’s Public TV feed to see what you can of the rover’s landing. Check out what previous rovers have sent home. You can also follow Perseverance on Twitter. The Mars Rover Program page has all the lingo and interesting facts about the rovers. Use the NASA site for Homeschool Helper Online’s FREE Mars worksheet.
Year Round Homeschooling has this detailed unit with lots of bite-sized information and fun facts, such as Earthlings see the Sun rise before Martians because it takes 12.6 minutes for light from the Sun to find its way to the rocky planet of Mars.
The Chaos and the Clutter used the online Experiencing Astronomy and a few other ideas for littles to learn about Mars.
123 Homeschool 4 Me has a slew of solar system resources to go through, including building a yarn solar system, 20 hands on space projects for kids and an easy-to-make air pressure science project.
Angelic Scalliwags features Mars in its seventh installment of its Astronomy Unit Study. There’s sweet crafts, like building a replica of the land rover that lands today out of cereal, gum drops and graham crackers, among other edibles and a really good rust experiment to replicate the high iron content of the planet’s surface.
Mars in the Movies/TV
Cosmos – Carl Sagan’s mini series was a groundbreaking and was called “A candle in the dark against the war on science.”
The Planets – This documentary series from the PBS delves into the planets and is stuffed with good info for curious learners.
The Martian – For older kids, this is an attention grabber, both the movie and the book. The author, Andy Weir, researched via astronauts, physicists, botanists and statisticians online and in conversation. The audiobook is fantastic and easily describes the science behind the ability of the craft to get to space and humans to survive.
