Weather Worlds (Live From Mars) - Call for Participation

[Jan Wee <jwee@MAIL.ARC.NASA.GOV>]

Dear LM_Net Members,

Please share this invitation to participate with all
interested educators!  Keep in mind the timeline --
October through November project period!  Your efforts
to disseminate this information is much appreciated!

Jan Wee, PTK Education Outreach


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    CALLING ALL *STUDENT SCIENTISTS*!

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                        |WEATHER WORLDS AWAITS YOU!\
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Sponsored by: PASSPORT TO KNOWLEDGE (WINNER OF THE 1997 EDNET HERO
                AWARD) LIVE FROM MARS electronic field trip

Target Grade Level: 4-10
Timeline:  October-November, 1997
Content Focus: Mars Missions; Comparative Weather: Earth/Mars;
               Weather Instruments; Mission Planning; Mars Pathfinder
               Findings

Activities:  >>>> Student proposals shared online via debate-lfm forum
             >>>> Real scientists mentor online forum
             >>>> Local data collection & online sharing
             >>>> Data analysis and interpretation
             >>>> 11/13 LIVE FROM MARS broadcast, "Today on Mars," features
                        select participating classes

Skills: Critical thinking, effective communication & debate, participation
        in online discussion forum, collaborative learning, teamwork,
        scientific method, instrumentation design, real world weather
        data collection.


Overview:  Weather Worlds -- Live From Mars Online Collaborative Activity

Two new exciting projects are awaiting you and your students in
Weather Worlds, an online collaborative activity designed to
parallel the Mars Pathfinder Mission!

Designed for a wide range of classrooms at varying levels of
sophistication and with varying amounts of time for participation, Weather
Worlds offers a challenge--students must decide what key weather
measurements they think are most important to gather here on Earth, and
then how to obtain them, by designing, building and/or acquiring
instruments to collect these data.

As part of this process, students will also have to figure out protocols
or procedures about how and when to gather data. For example, is it enough
to gather temperatures just at noon? Do you also need night-time lows? If
you want maximum and minimum temperatures, how should you go about
securing these? As another example: Pathfinder's temperature sensors are
set at three different heights above the Martian surface. Would such
measurements be relevant on Earth?

Students are not limited to instruments paralleling those on Pathfinder;
they are encouraged to start from scratch and come up with their best
ideas. Temperature, wind, pressure, humidity, hours of daylight, cloud
cover-- these are all areas that students might consider.

The idea behind Weather Worlds is to give students the feel of real world
science. Not only will they be gathering data in ways parallel to what
Pathfinder is doing on Mars, they'll also be using the Internet to debate
plans with their peers, something that NASA scientists also have to do.

To become part of the EARTH AND MARS WEATHER DEBATE, send e-mail to:
        listmanager@quest.arc.nasa.gov
in the message body write: subscribe debate-lfm

A detailed summary of the tasks and a timeline can be found at:
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/events/weatherworlds.html

QUESTIONS?...contact Teacher-Moderators:
             Eileen Bendixsen <ebend@netlabs.net>
             Susan Hurstcalderone <calderone@sysnet.net>

Passport to Knowledge (PTK) is supported, in part, by the
National Science Foundation and NASA.

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