Thank you for visiting – this is the Mars Colonization Project that served as the end of my terrestrial planets overview. It has multiple different worksheets and assignments, but is all capped off by a large research project where students work to create their own self-functioning Mars Colony. In addition, I made it required for all students to create some type of 3D model with their space colony. Students that took this seriously had A BLAST! It also goes with watching Mark Watney in the movie, “The Martian”. Most School libraries already have a copy of this resource that you can use to show it in the classroom. The project was broken into 3 different parts for my classrooms: Case Report/Essay, Class Presentation, and 3D Model.

In this project, you will be getting the following documents for your use:

• Settling Mars Overview (included at the bottom of the document is a suggested timeline that I have used in the past)
• Suggested Websites – different places to suggest students to do their research on the topic.
• “The Martian” Notes – a worksheet for them to take notes during the movie that will help them later with their research
• Graphic Organizers for Research – there are 3 total that have essential questions to answer for research, notes that they have used or created, and a spot for the sources at the bottom of each page.
• Case Report Rubric – this was used to grade their formal essay that is supposed to be similar to an official NASA report or briefing for the project
• 3D Model Rubric
• StarTalk worksheet with Neil deGrasse Tyson – a general worksheet to follow along with an online video of Neil deGrasse Tyson talking with the Author, Andy Weir over the accuracies of the Movie in regards to colonizing Mars. (Season 3, Episode 8)
• VR ISS Questions – on Google Earth, you can visit the International Space Station and look through the different components. This short 4 question worksheets gets students to think about different parts of a spaceship when researching and formulating how to colonize Mars

Hope this helps – it can take anywhere from a week to 2 weeks to really get into the project. I loved seeing the innovation the students came up with, and the 3D models never seemed to disappoint either!