FRS 004 — Sec. 011 — (2 unit) — CRN 26067 — R 3:10-5:30pm — 175A Phys/Geology
Edible Missions to Mars

Instructor: Dawn Sumner, Department of Geology, College of Letters and Science

Description: During this seminar, students will work in groups of about 5 to design missions to Mars based on NASA space exploration procedures. Each group will be given a budget, a weight limit, a list of potential instruments, and enough information to design a mission to accomplish a goal set by each group. They will propose their missions to a committee of peers for feedback and approval. About week 5, the students will be provided with edible materials to build their space craft, and we will have a launch and landing party. The last two meetings, students will run their missions by choosing which analyses to perform, interpreting simulated data, and developing hypotheses to explain their results. They will submit written and oral mission reports to the entire class on the last week. Students will learn a mix of scientific information about Mars, engineering information about space missions, and administrative procedures used by NASA. More importantly, they will gain skills in making decisions as a group within financial and technical constraints; evaluating their own and others ideas in a constructive, collaborative environment; presenting materials to their peers; and interpreting data to make choices.

Format: We will meet weekly for 2-2.5 hours for the first 8 weeks of the quarter. Students will need to gather additional information about Mars and exploration instruments, mostly from NASA web sites. They will need to prepare written and oral components of their reports out side of class time, which may involve group work.

Grading:

Class Participation	30%	Contributions to class and group discussions and ideas
Mission Proposal	15%	Group written and oral reports
	15%	Individual contribution to reports (as reported by student)
Spacecraft Construction	10%	Group creativity in use of materials as judged by peers
Final Mission Report	15%	Group written and oral reports
	15%	Individual contribution to reports (as reported by student)

About the Instructor: Associate professor Dawn Sumner is a member of the Geology Department. Her research focuses on the early evolution of life, early Earth’s ocean chemistry, and how microbial communities affect rocks. Dawn is also a member of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program Advisory Group, she recently helped rewrite the scientific goals involved in the search for life on Mars, and she is part of a proposal to build and operate a camera for the next Mars rover mission, which will launch in 2009.