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The Great Mars Adventure
Planning
a trip to Mars? Be sure to pack oxygen, a “home”, and
vehicles to investigate the planet. Then allow at least four and
half years as you blast off on a Great Mars Adventure.
These were some of the
challenges that faced about 300 technology education students at
Jackson, Jefferson and Roosevelt middle schools located in the downtown
Oklahoma City area this year. Technology education, for students
in middle and junior high school, is one of Oklahoma’s seven
CareerTech occupational areas for students ranging in age from sixth
grade to adult.
The Great Mars Adventure
Project was funded through a $36,000 grant from the Oklahoma Space
Industry Development Authority/National Aeronautic Space Administration
(OSIDA/NASA) for the collaborative project written to include all
three schools. The grant writers were technology education instructors
David Wehba, Jefferson Middle School, Patrick Dennis, Roosevelt
Middle School, and James Graham, Jackson Middle School.
The goal: To locate water
on Mars, land, and live there for three years.
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Standing in
the partially constructed Mars Base Newton Dome with the airlock
are Jackson Middle School technology education students.
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This project applies math,
science and technology through measurements, Computer Aided Drafting (CAD)
animation, design, manufacturing, mapping systems, biotechnologies, space
exploration, robotics and virtual reality.
“It has direct impact
on our own planet’s survival”, Graham said. “When you
really think about it, we are flying around the sun, stuck on a planet,
with a limited ability to produce food, using up our air and water, and
we don’t have any immediate way off.”
Just how the goal would be
accomplished was part of the learning process that also included problem
solving and technical skills training through this interactive project.
With the grant money, a wide
variety of skills and technologies were introduced with equipment and
materials each school received, according to Graham. Each school built
a geometric-shaped, tent-like structure – a geodesic dome –
that their team would live in for three years on the “red planet.”
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Students ride
the “manned exploration vehicle.” |
Each school received a robotic vehicle
to sample and probe for the water. The vehicle, guided by video,
shows use of virtual robotic control (robotics, virtual reality).
They each also received a go-cart (manned exploration vehicle) to
asses quantity of samples, materials for the construction of a geodesic
(a geometric structure) dome (manufacturing, construction) and they
also developed hydroponics systems in order to survive on mars (biotechnologies),
Graham said.
Students also learned
to use software provided for learning to fly a remote control plane
and electric trainer plane. A camera could be used on the planes,
or on bottle rockets, or hot air balloons at schools with limited
fields (global positioning and coordinate mapping skills) to find
a landing site. “We launched a rocket from a hot air balloon
that “found” water (in five gallon buckets) in a field,”
Graham said.
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Graham said that Roosevelt’s
“Mars Base Archimedes” is a 24-foot dome built from bottom
up, and a 50-foot dome built from top downward. Jackson’s 18 foot
“Mars Base Newton” is a dome with modular panels, a separate
half dome for a garage for their manned vehicle, and an air lock that
doubles as a shower for Mars travelers. Jefferson’s “Mars
Base Einstein” was a 24-foot dome. Each dome includes a living section
and an air lock.
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Graham’s students, 50 sixth
- eighth graders, worked for two weeks to design and build the geodesic
dome. They later brought it to the Technology Student Association
Conference in April at the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds.
“Some of the challenges
the students had to work with included the fact that, on Mars, there’s
little oxygen and they’d need to find a water source necessary
for human survival,” he said. “They learned that it
takes about nine months to get to Mars, so it would also take nine
to return to Earth. And, they must live three years on Mars.”
“Building this
structure also includes skill training for students in: safety,
tool use, and manufacturing to mark, cut, flatten, and drill pipe.
The teams rotate to provide a total experience for all.
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Jackson Middle
School technology education instructor James Graham helps the students
build the dome at the TSA Leadership Conference. |
posted 5/8/03
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