Have you ever wanted your students to gain real-world science experiences, but you aren’t sure where to go? Then check out the Mars Exploration Student Data Teams, or MESDT, program offered by NASA, Arizona State University’s Mars Education Program, and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. In this free program, student teams work with scientists, mission planners and educators on the CRISM (Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars) team at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory (http://crism.jhuapl.edu/). The teams research images of Mars using the CRISM instrument, which is currently aboard MRO. CRISM’s primary mission is to search for mineral traces of ancient water as the spectrometer images the planet in up to 544 wavelengths of light.
Student teams are not required to have extensive knowledge of geology, or even Mars, to participate! Students work with real data from the CRISM instrument to assist with future mission landing sites, to find mineral traces associated with certain surface features, and even to submit targeted observations of the surface of Mars!Visit http://mesdt.asu.edu for more information.
Link to the NASA Explorer Schools Virtual Campus home page.