Mission to Mars Semester STEM Unit + Mars Colony Project!
Need a semester-long STEM unit? This Mission to Mars bundle includes engineering design challenges building up to a capstone project of building a habitat on Mars!
Grades: 6th - 8th
Teaching Duration: 12 - 18 weeks
“My students are LOVING this. We are on week three. It covers all our Space unit TEKS and allows lots of collaboration and creative thinking.”
Lesson Overview
Transform your classroom into a team of astronauts on a Mission to Mars!
This STEM curriculum begins with Stage 1 team challenges that build teamwork and communication skills. Mission Control then guides your class through Stage 2 engineering design challenges with each unit a progressively more complex design challenge as students arrive at and explore Mars. The final phase is to tackle the Stage 3 Mars Colony project.
Units are aligned to science and math standards along with a different career focus. Each session has an instructional video led by an engineer, editable handouts, and a complete teacher's guide.
Part 1: Mission to Mars
STEM curriculum includes 10 engineering and teamwork challenges:
Meet the Crew: Mission Patch + Team hype video
Get to Mars: Straw Rockets Engineering Challenge
Land on Mars: Landing Device Engineering Challenge
Exploring Mars: Wearable Device Challenge
Live from Mars: Mars Matching Game + Live from Mars Report
Collect Samples: Pneumatic Device Challenge
Transport Samples: Rover Engineering Challenge
Experiment on Mars
Explore Mars: Catapult Challenge
Emergency on Mars: Zipline Challenge
Part 2: Mars Colony Project
Design a colony on Mars! Take your STEM or STEAM classroom or program to the next level with this in-depth engineering design STEM challenge. Students will apply scientific concepts, math skills, critical thinking, research, and engineering design to plan a long term habitat on Mars. This creative and in-depth project is a great activity for your classroom or afterschool program! Students will need to consider questions like: How will colonists get food? What is the Martian environment like? Will our colony have a government? How do we prevent boredom? This product includes:
Explore Mars: Teach students all about Mars through 5 interactive games and activities!
STEM Project Guide: This complete project guide take students through the engineering design process to think about, research, design, and build a colony on Mars!
Mission to Mars Planning Game: This Mission to Mars Planning Game product dives deeper into possible colony solutions, adds an interactive and game-like planning tool, and is especially useful for students that need more guidance, ideas for design solutions, or have limited internet access. Through game cards, students are introduced to real NASA technologies such as hydroponics, solar tents, MOXIE oxygen generator, and more! This encourages debate and consideration of budget and risk.
This product is a bundle of the Mission to Mars Unit + Mars Colony Project - you can purchase these separately below:
