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Students Use Mars Trek to Explore Geography and Planetary Science

Students Use Mars Trek to Explore Geography and Planetary Science


An educational activity created by education specialist Brandon Rodriguez (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory) gets students in grades 6-12 learning about geography and planetary science through NASA's Mars Trek online interactive. Available on the JPL Education website as a project that students can do independently or with guidance from a teacher, parent, or guardian, the activity describes how mission operators consider engineering constraints and science goals when planning driving routes for the Mars rovers. Students then learn how they can create their own driving route for the rovers using the tools and science data available through Mars Trek. Visit the link to view step-by-step instructions with pictures: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/learn/project/map-a-mars-rover-driving-route/.

Mars Trek activities, in particular, benefit over 1.2 million grade 6-12 students, annually. As a component of NASA’s Science Activation Infrastructure, Mars Trek (and other Solar System Treks) are available as resources for NASA Science Activation partners and to the greater outreach and education community.

A screen grab of Mars Trek that shows a line being drawn between two locations on Mars. A tooltip menu next to the line has Elevation Profile Calculation highlighted.

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Last Updated
Nov 03, 2021
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NASA Science Editorial Team

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