Mapping Mars 2006

No excuses! I need everyone's final reports by June 9th! Feel free to e-mail me sections for corrections. Good Luck!

Our images should be here by the 22nd/23rd. We must be ready to analyze them and prepare the final report. We won't meet this week, but you should work:
1. Get all of your background images in order. If you have to add text, make measurements, identify features etc. do it!
2. Know exactly what your experiment will be and write it. Objective, hypothesis, independent and dependent variables, procedure.
3. How will you show your results? In almost all cases this will be done using a set of comparison images. Be sure you have those images collected. If they are THEMIS images print them and save them to something. If they are Earth-based, be sure you have citations ready for them.
4. Discussion. How ill you know if you've discovered something? How sure are you of your results? Think about this. You will be able to use the full set of 16 images plus and images we collected from last year. Do they show what you expected? There's nothing wrong with failure! If you don't prove your point, or find out that you were wrong, that's acceptable!
5. Abstract. Someone must write a one-paragraph summary of your entire project listing the objective, describing the experiment, and giving the results. Start this.
This all must be done by the end of school. We have the images for six months, but the 8th graders are moving on. So everything must be done by the end of this school year.

6. Best of luck on the MCAS exams!

Posted below is a message from ASU on our targeting results. " Well, for the most part - the images your students requested will be taken. Some of them are slightly adjusted to meet some of our mission planner needs, but all in all, things were good and the adjustments were minor. The Olympus Mons image I did not put in -- I figured this group was studying Alba, so I wanted them to keep focus. We were able to get both teams images of Alba....and I decided to find 2 areas on the eastern side of Alba that I also put in targets for, on behalf of these students. So for the real good news....we put in 16 images for your teams - so we will get both their primary and secondary images....with the exception of the Alba groups - we put in their original Alba requests, plus 2 others on the eastern side.Your students are going to get some AWESOME images!!!"

Hopefully by the end of today (5/11) all groups will have successfully targeted. We won't get the images until the 22nd. We also won't meet again until after MCAS ends. DON'T STOP WORKING!!!! Get the background report done. Download and work on any THEMIS images you are going to use in addition to your targeted image. Get everything done that can be done before you get the new images. There are very few days left and you have a HUGE amount of work to do. Decide who is going to do what and get started!

ASU has created an infrared mosaic of Alba Patera at http://www.mars.asu.edu/~cedwards/alba_patera/ Go to it and click on the small image. Then by using the controls at the bottom of the screen you can move around the image and zoom in. Supposedly you can take portions of the image and use them in Photoshop. I don't know how to do that yet. Enjoy!!

"As the school year is getting ready to come to a close for many of you, I thought I would make our last conference a very special one. We really do enjoy getting connected with as many of you and your students as possible! The title of this conference is: Highlights of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. The focus of this presentation will be to familiarize students with the Mars Exploration Rover mission that has been going on since January 2004. This conference will NOT focus on types of features can be seen in THEMIS visible images nor does it reflect the types of project students can focus on for MSIP. This is a special conference intended to share the excitement of this mission. This conference is recommended for all interested participants." Paige Valderamma, ASU.

This is a great chance for you people to find out what is happening on the surface of Mars. As Paige said, this won't help you with your project, but it is a great chance to hear from one of the scientists who has been working with the rovers over the past two years. Be there if you can.

All except one of our experiments has been accepted by ASU, and hopefully we can get that one corrected by next week. The director has said that she will send us the targeting software next week. We must have our selections back to ASU by May 12th. Each team will be given one day to learn the software and do the targeting. That will happen either late in the week of May 1st, or early during the week of May 8th. This is a real stretch, but it's the only way that each of you can experience using the software, and I don't want you to miss out on that. The two dates will be the 10th and 11th of May. Ten computers will have the necessary software. The way we usually did this was to work in groups of two. That probably will be the plan this time also. I would like to have the "generalists" (those looking for a channel, crater, etc.) to go on the 10th, and the ones who already have a definite location, i.e. Alba Patera to go on the 11th. So far I see only one conflict with that because of the Jazz Band field trip. Let me know your feelings. I've added three PowerPoint presentations to the Index Page at http://www.gatesscience.info/teamescience/msipindex.htm It would really help if you went through these before you went to the computer lab. Click on each part and then either save them, if you want to look at them more than once, or open them to view the presentation.

1. Marsmaticians: They may consider changing their question to "What do the physical characteristics of the floors of channels tell us about the formation and/or subsequent erosion that has taken place. (They will never figure out exactly what formed the channel - but the more doable project looks at the erosional processes that have taken place.)

2. M&Ms: They may consider: What forces have been the most dominant in changing or eroding Valles Marineris? (I added in the most dominant -- I'm sure the telecon on Valles really helped them -- they should have specific categories of what they are looking for - which they do -- but they should also mention or include what these categories "look like" or show samples of them. Even without measurements, they will be fine.)

3. Team Discovery: They may consider: By identifying the beginning or end of a channel, can you identify distinguishing characteristics that can be used to help determine if the channels formed by lava or water? (They would most likely be be better off finding the "beginning" of the channel. They will proably want to use a MOLA map so they can also see how elevation can help them determine the "beginning". As for the part of their question - where the material went - I'm not sure how they would determine this.)

4. Mars Bars: No special comments - sounds interesting!

5. Musicians on Mars: This is the group that really needs a more doable question/project before they can target. They will never be able to identify the type of rocks.

6. Marvelous Mars Women: They may consider: Is it possible to identify distinguishing characteristics between a depression as being created by volcanic or water-related process such as sapping, and if so, what are they. (This sounds interesting).

7. Aurora Boriealis: They may consider: What are the physical differences between the east and west sides of Olympus Mons? (Based on their procedure, they should answer this using crater counts to determine which side E or W of Olympus is older. If these groups decided to do this with Alba - they should still look at crater counts, or in terms of the fractures, cross cutting relationships.)

8. Shooting Stars - same comments as above, if this remains their project.

Our last teleconference will be on Thursday. It will run from 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. EDT Note the change in time. This will cut into your last class of the day. The topic will be "Volcanoes on Mars." If you are doing volcanoes, or anything associated with volcanic activity on Mars, you should try to attend.