Table of Contents

Curriculum Outcomes

The material covered in this unit addresses core curriculum outcomes in Science. While the focus of these units is on the Science Curriculum, teachers will no doubt see many opportunities to cover outcomes in other curricula, such as Language, Art, Mathematics, and Social Studies, and are encouraged to do so.

Lesson Plan Themes

The materials contained in the lesson plans of this unit are designed to help students develop a conceptual understanding of key ideas in Science. These key ideas are related to living and working in environments which are limited in available space and also limited in available resources. To put these limitations in a contemporary setting, a mission to Mars is imagined.

Each lesson plan deals with a single issue related to a human mission to Mars.

Why a Mission to Mars?

For many people, the technical and intellectual challenge, the sense of adventure, and the excitement engendered by such an ambitious challenge are sufficient reasons to justify undertaking such a task. For others the justification is measured in terms of scientific gains in our knowledge and understanding of exotic places and the intrinsic need to satisfy our curiosity. Some may see Mars as a source of profit and economic gain and still others, a chance to satisfy a deep seated need to explore and pioneer new lands.

From a teaching perspective, planning a mission to Mars provides an unparalleled opportunity for students to develop clear conceptual insight into the laws of nature. In our everyday complex lives it is often difficult to distinguish the significant from the trivial, the fundamental from the superfluous, and the essential from the extraneous.

A good way to develop a clearer understanding of the natural processes which govern every aspect of our lives is to imagine ourselves in a uniquely different setting, completely devoid of any natural resources and then to ask the question," What do we need to survive?"

Planning a mission to Mars provides a unique opportunity to evaluate and understand both the environmental issues and physiological issues related to human survival.

Undertaking a voyage to Mars requires the most rigorous application of mankind's greatest intellectual invention called Science.

What Is Science?

One often sees lists of facts, huge compendiums of numerical data, catalogues of information about topics as diverse as sea shells and interstellar molecules presented as if it were Science when in fact this is really related more to Information Technology than to Science.

Science is a methodology, whereby one can, by careful observation and logical deductive reasoning, systematically discover the natural laws which every process in the Universe must obey.

It is easy to confuse what we have learned from Science with the methodology of Science.

Good Science teaching begins by helping one's students develop a healthy scepticism for "facts" and a healthy trust in observation and careful reasoning. Students should learn to mistrust "anecdotal" evidence as a reliable source of truth, and learn to ask probing questions into mysteries of the world that they see around them. They should learn to spontaneously seek unequivocal evidence to support a claim before deciding if claim is, in fact, "true".

Almost every good Science lesson should begin with a question. With guidance from their teacher, students should undertake to answer the question, by observation, by experiment, by prediction (based on well understood laws and principles).

In these lesson plans the questions are, "Is it possible for humans to get to the planet Mars?" and "How will humans survive in space and on the planet Mars?"

Important Information for Teachers about
Mass, Weight, Pressure, Force and Energy