‘Explore your new home, from its climate to its terrain, then build a rover to help your research.’

In this chapter students figure out more about the surface of Mars, including:

• finding out about the weather on Mars,
• creating a newspaper article about water on Mars,
• ...

‘Recruit your crew, pack your bag and design your rocket to launch your mission!’

In this chapter students find out about some the challenges that will be presented with space exploration to Mars, including:

• comprehending the changing distances between our planets
• describing the skills...

A Catalyst article about the idea of life on Mars. Scientists involved with the Mars Express mission aim to find out more and will try to establish if there ever has been life on Mars. The article looks at the miniature devices that they will employ on the mission. 

This article is from Catalyst: GCSE...

Produced by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), this wall chart describes the space mission to Mars, the experiments aboard, whether there is water on Mars, Britain's Beagle2 lander and the search for life on Mars. Mars Express was the European Space Agency’s first mission to Mars. Its role is to...

NASA's Viking Mission to Mars was composed of two spacecraft, Viking 1 and Viking 2, each consisting of an orbiter and a lander. The primary mission objectives were to obtain high resolution images of the Martian surface, characterize the structure and composition of the atmosphere and surface, and search for...

The Mars Safari Education Pack is designed to leave primary school children feeling like they’ve explored the Red Planet! Working in small groups, children design and build their own ExoMars rover, analyse ‘Martian’ soil samples, safely navigate the Rover across the surface of Mars and make a solar light that only...

Guidance and navigation engineer, Richard Lancaster, explains how the ‘Mars Yard’, at Airbus Defence and Space, Stevenage, allows engineers to test out the capabilities of the ExoMars rover.  He talks about the need to transmit all commands and receive data through a spacecraft orbiting Mars.  Spacecraft engineer,...

This resource encourages pupils to develop their practical skills using a saw and a glue gun to construct a miniature catapult capable of firing a marshmallow. They also have the opportunity to develop their skills to work as part of a team. This activity could be used in key stage two as a short design and...

Could there be life on Mars? Perhaps so, although the high intensity of UV light means that it is unlikely to be found on the surface. The experiment demonstrates how bacteria grown on agar plates can be killed off by UV exposure. Curriculum areas covered: • Microbiology • Cell biology • Aseptic technique The video...

This collection provides 4 units of work linked to Design and Technology, which explore the need for exploration robots, how they work, how their systems collect data and an understanding of the specialised materials and mechanisms they use. All activities centre around the ExoMars Mission and the Rosalind Franklin...

Aimed at the 11-14 age group, this is a unit of six one-hour design and technology lessons to develop an understanding of how systems on exploration robots are combined and collect data. Students are given a design brief to build their own model rover, experientially, to function in simulated Martian conditions....

This resource provides a series of 1 hour lessons designed to help children understand the need for exploration robots and learn about how they function. They are based around the European Space Agency’s (ESA) new robotic rover Rosalind Franklin...

This is a unit of three two hour lessons to consolidate understanding of the specialised materials and mechanisms used on exploration robots. Students build or test, or build and test these to develop knowledge and evaluate them.  These resources are aimed at the 14-16 age group.  The context is focussed on the...

This resource provides a series of lessons designed to help children understand the need for exploration robots and learn about how they work. The activities link mostly to D&T with a science context, though some of the activities are more focussed on learning in English.

The activities are:

...