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BY CHRIS LAFORTUNE Jeri Gapastione's Roosevelt Middle School classroom became a "Mars rover" landing site Friday for a classroom science exercise. Gapastione's students built miniature Mars rovers from recycled materials and tested their landing worthiness as part of the Adler Planetarium's Astronomy Connections program. Students attempted to land their rovers, bundled in protective bubble wrap, by hurling them toward classroom locations representing Martian landmarks. Plastic containers stood in for the red planet's South Pole; Meridiani Planum, site of one of NASA's current rovers; or the Gusev Crater. A beanbag chair represented Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system. The rovers' only obstacle: A string suspended about 4 1/2-feet above the ground, representing the trajectory necessary for a spacecraft to survive entry into the Martian atmosphere. After each landing, the students unwrapped their rovers to see how they survived. Joe Donlan's rover, dubbed Boatman, survived the landing near Gusev Crater intact, probably because it bounced off the Olympus Mons beanbag before hitting the floor, he said. "It's really heavy, and we've already done some tests, and it has broken," Donlan said. "This is the only one that survived." Another rover, Bel, fared less well, breaking up on impact. Elizabeth Johnston, a student on the Bel team, said her group was sure a fan on the rover was going to break off because it was loose when the group put it on. "But we didn't know it was going to break that much," Johnston said. During one test run, Emily Freedman noted, the rover hit the ceiling and broke apart. "The wheels still worked, and that's about it," she said. The program grew out of a planetarium workshop series that helps teachers develop science activities for their students, said Adler Senior Educator Michelle Nichols. "These teachers, some have science backgrounds, some don't," Nichols said. "It's a way to get science information spread across the curriculum, so it is more accessible to a wider variety of students." Gapastione and fellow Roosevelt teacher Sandra Painter were among 60 teachers selected to participate in Adler's five-session workshop called Alien Encounters. Gapastione teaches language arts and Painter teaches humanities. Participating teachers studied microorganisms and life forms in extreme environments, lessons Gapastione and Painter brought back to their students. The teachers first asked students to draw what they thought alien life looked like, Gapastione said. "We talked about the fact that life could be microorganisms and extremofiles, which can live in an environment that is incredibly hostile," she said. "So they could see that life does not have to be a big, mammal-type object." The students then built their rovers. Now that testing is complete, they will write reports on their projects. The reports will be posted on the Internet for critique by two other schools participating in the project. Students will have a chance to revise their reports before posting on Web sites, which will debut to the public at an Adler reception for all 60 participating schools, Gapastione said. The reception is scheduled June 13, Nichols said. |