FRS 002F — Sec. 001
— (2 unit) — CRN 45501 — T 4:40-7:00pm —
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 three 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 informed choices.
Format: We will meet weekly for 2-2.5 hours for the first 8
weeks of the quarter. An optional field trip to the Jet Propulsion Lab will
be arranged if possible. Alternatively, a trip to NASA Ames Mars Center will
be arranged. 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 outside 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) and
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 and
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.