There is also a classroom activity that is connected to the Mars theme available through the ASU Mars Education Program. This year's activity is an educational design challenge that features a simulation based on designing and launching a mission to Mars. The simulation is Marsbound! Mission to the Red Planet and features a teacher's guide, student's guide, equipment cards, design mat, and a "Certified Mission Planner" certificate (see Challenge page). These should be downloaded and prepared according to the teacher's guide prior to conducting the simulations. Marsbound! may need to be adapted to the level of the student participants. The focus is on design and standards covered in the project and are included in the teacher's guide. The goal is to help your students explore the role of an engineer or scientist in planning a mission to better help them explore pursuing either area as a possible career.

The teacher's guide on pages 6 and 7 includes the following section:

Using the Marsbound! Cards as a Stand-Alone Activity
As a shortened version of the Marsbound!, you can do only Activity 4 and hold a "design challenge" competition to see which team can achieve the most science return and/or be the most under budget. Certain cards have printed "SCIENCE RETURN: +1" on them. By totaling up the "science return" on their cards, your students can get an abstract rating of the science value of their mission. We have also included a special set of six green cards. These cards represent random events that can occur during the development and execution of a mission. Half the cards represent "spin-offs", commercial applications of the students' mission, that are in effect "free money" for the students' budgets. The other half of the green cards are "problem" cards and represent difficulties that can arise during a mission. If the students have planned for these contingencies as part of their constraints, these cards will have little or no effect on their mission, but if they have not, there will be serious issues to be dealt with!

Steps for the competition:

1. Assign each team a budget of $200 Million
2. Complete Activity 4 with the following adaptations:
   • Number all of your teams. Before launch have each team in numerical order draw a green contingency card for the team next in order, team one draws for team two, team two draws for team three, and so on, until the final team draws for team one. Have the teams then make adjustments based on the contingencies.
   • Have each team complete the Mission Design Log
3. When ready for launch have each team roll a die. The number rolled represents the probability of mission launch failure based on the reliability of the booster. If they roll a number that is greater than the booster, then their mission fails: 0 points.
4. Add up the total points for "Science Return" on each card they used in their mission. That is the team's score.
5. Have each team give their points achieved on the Mission Design Log. Remember if the launch fails that team scores 0 points.
6. Have each team complete Activity 5.
7. Submit all teams' design logs along with the Space Week Challenge Entry form (see submission directions below)

Thank you to the ASU Mars Education Program and the program's director, Sheri Klug, for partnering with ISGC for this year's Science Challenge.

To supplement the Mars theme for interested classrooms and teachers, StarDate has agreed to allow us to use previously aired programs on Mars and NASA's Mars missions from their archives. These MP3 files are listed below:

StarDate Radio Broadcasts:

• July 30, 2007
• July 31, 2007
• August 1,2007
• August 2,2007
• August 6,2007

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