The End is Here

We finally finished our research! It was a great experience for me and my students. I've posted a blog post on my personal blog  (https://rippie77.wordpress.com/ ) summarizing everything. I've also posted my thoughts about the project. If you have the time, I would suggest you do the project. It was worthwhile and my students really did learn a lot. Feel free to contact me with any questions. I'm hoping our research gets posted to MSIP site.

EL FIN!

On Wednesday, May 18, we did our final presentation for the project. We presented to Don Boonstra, Sheri Boonstra, and Dr. Michael Meyer, the lead Scientist for the Mars Exploration Project. Before the beginning of the presentation, we had trouble with our headsets and hearing one another. After half an hour of stumbling through technology, we were connected. Alex Longo introduced the presentation and everyone who had worked on it. Following Alex, Adam Pohlman, and Niamh Cannon went through the background and hypothesis slides to set up the presentation and start it rolling. Following them, everyone else presented their work about their assigned Mars site. The presentation went by smoothly and we finished with comments. Dr Michael Meyer pointed out that Olivia's discovery of a mountain that collapsed between MO year 2 and MO year 4. Alex is hopeful that this could be a possible reason to cancel the 2020 launch to this site. Clayton 's discovery of Gusev crater's mini crater getting smaller could just be a difference in lighting between the two pictures. As these comments were being spoken, a couple of our students and Dr Meyer discovered a mini crater inside the crater with the lighting difference that we could have studied. Niamh likes to gloat about the fish picture she picked on our hypothesis slide as Dr Meyer said that he loved the picture and might use it in some of his future presentations. During creation of this slide Alex said that, "due to the picture having fish in it, it is not relevant to our project because we are looking for water on Mars not fish." To this Niamh replied, "Too bad" and kept the picture. At the end of the presentation the group members that did not leave were asked what they thought of the project and what they learned. Adam stated that before the project he wanted to be a surgeon but, after this experience, he is thinking of studying to be an engineer for NASA. Adam also made the comment that Mars indeed does not like to cooperate so we had to change our ideas and hypothesis. Grace learned so much more about Mars than what she was expecting, and she had a lot of fun doing it. Niamh said she learned a great deal of patience while dealing with the hypothesis due to how many times they had to rework the hypothesis. Which was a LOT.  She also mentioned how when you look out to the night sky Mars feels so far away, but as the years go on and our scientific discoveries increase, Mars just continually gets closer and closer to us. Eventually Mars will just be a step away for humanity. Being a part in that discovery is a huge bragging right to her. Ms. Rip explained how Alex's enthusiasm caused enthusiasm throughout the group and let us progress. Finally Alex stated that, "It really reinforced my beliefs about how important educating the next generation is to NASA.  They have devoted an incredible amount of time and resources to education.  What the Mars Odyssey team has done (operating spacecraft for 15 years) is incredible, and has allowed our research to take place.  We could be the generation to get to Mars; motivating students is important." With these comments our part in this story has ended but, with our ending, someone else can begin a new one.
By: Adam Pohlman and Niamh Cannon

Approaching the End

The meeting today we came together to do our last final touch ups on our final Mars imaging project. Our presentation will be on Wednesday, May 18th. Today we individually discussed our research with the help of Alex and Ms. Rip.Grace explained her information on the Hale Crater, Olivia went through and corrected my evidence on Jezero Crater, and Ann went through her process of finding frost at Phoenix Landing site. Grace found that mountain ranges on her site may have shifted over time. Olivia found a deposition, built up of sediments, in the same area around the crater rim. Ann founds evidence of frost on her site, Phoenix Landing. Clayton informed us about his research on Gusev Crater and found that there was no real evidence of rsls in the section he researched, but he found a small crater that had shifted significantly believed to be caused by wind erosion. So far, only minor changes will need to be made for our final presentation next Wednesday. After months of hard work, we will finally be prepared to finish up our project and show NASA all of our research.

Winding Down

The meeting held today was one of the last times our group will gather before presenting our final presentation; most everyone was present. Today we furthered our research on our subject and continued finalize some of the slides on the powerpoint. Many of us looked for more images to better explain our hypothesis. Adam continued to work on the hypothesis. Clayton and Will worked hard on gathering their images. Ann finished her search for the images of frost on Mars, while Niamh worked on the powerpoint. Everyone is working hard and doing their part to prepare for the final presentation!

Nearing the Finish Line

As we start the last quarter of our school year. We are beginning to wind down our research for the MSIP project. Students have continued to work on their section of the project for the final presentation. We did take a break during Easter, but now are starting up again. So far my view of our project is a bit different from the students. I find that I'm enjoying watching them come to find that researching is very different from labs and other activities we normally do in class. Their frustration is evident when they are trying to find the RSL's in photos or even changes about the RSL's. But I try to tell them that even though we have our hypothesis our research might show it to be incorrect. Future research might have to go in a different direction. I think they are all starting to see what research is all about. As we continue to finish the project, students will start blogging about what they are finding and how they viewed the whole experience. So sit back and enjoy the results.

Thanks
Ms. Rip

Continuing Research

Each student worked hard to continue their research. I (Ann) continued to look for images of frost on the surface of Mars and matching up locations while Adam worked to compose the three hypotheses into one. Everyone added more details and pictures to the final powerpoint presentation for clear explanations and accurate information.                       

3/10/2016 (Morning)

Adam and Niamh changed the question and tightened it to a more persist question. Anne is trying to match a picture she found from the Venus lander to a location on Mars and farther looking for frost on the Mars surface. Will is spreading his slides out and is enlarging the pictures and slimming down his word count on each slide. Nicholas is looking for images and reviewing our changes. For the future in our next meeting next Tuesday or Thursday we will tighten up our information and we have just started a new powerpoint that we are working on also we will add  better pictures with more detail.