Mars: The Coolest Destination for Exchange Students

Mars: The Coolest Destination for Exchange Students

Middle school students from around the globe learned how to identify life on Mars during the NASA, ECA Collaboratory, and Google Mission Mars Virtual Field Trip. #MarsFieldTrip

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The Mission To Mars Virtual Field Trip is a great way

to bring classrooms together

as if we were on a real field trip together,

investigating something and learning about something

new and magnificent.

And we are really fortunate that we are able to share

the excitement of Mars by taking classrooms around the world

with us on our journey to Mars.

 It’s a wonderful opportunity for us

to be able to partner with the State Department and Google

in a unique form that allows us to

tell everyone about what we do.

So what we did is we were connected

over a virtual network with schools all around the world

and having local students come by

gave us the opportunity to get them excited

see things and hear things from NASA scientists

like they have never had that opportunity before.

We were chatting with people, kids all around the world

about the NASA experience on the road to Mars

and how Obama is going to send people to Mars in 2030

to see if there was ever life on Mars.

When I heard about this program I was so excited

because it will allow the students

to have a real life example

of how we can interact with things going on in Space.

So I feel like this is a great opportunity

for them to expand their learning

and become more interested in things going on in Space.

What was cool is that I got to talk

to an expert of science.

I asked a question and they will answer it

and I know a whole lot of new things in less than one minute.

Because it is more interactive instead of just the teacher

standing there and telling you. It’s more interactive

because you have other opinions not just one persons.

Certainly kids of this age really crave a connection

and to feel like they are a part of something bigger

and it gives them that larger perspective

and compatriots around the world that they can connect with.

Because maybe one of the other countries could have helped me out

with questions that I didn’t know and I will learn about it.

I have a lot of students that are interested in robotics,

they want to be engineers.

I hope they understand that this is something that they can do.

I am just hoping that by this experience

their eyes will open

and they will become more interested in this field.

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