Meteors, Mars, and Moon Rocks, Oh My!
September 14, 2011
Seventy honors biology students from Chaparral High School studied “mystery” rocks and meteorites to explore aspects of astrobiology on a recent visit to ASU. The visit was organized by the ASU Origins Project, the NASA-supported ASU Astrobiology Program, and Chaparral High School honors biology teacher, Noel Rosenthal.
Students attended three separate sessions. Ariel Anbar, Director of the Astrobiology Program and a professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, challenged students to consider whether life is common or rare in the universe. Sheri Klug, Program Manager of the Mars Education Program at ASU and Education and Public Outreach coordinator for the Astrobiology Program, led a session in which students evaluated a bag of mystery rocks to deduce information about the type of planet from which the rocks originated. And mineralogist and collection manager for ASU's Center for Meteorite Studies, Laurence Garvie, gave students an opportunity to see, touch, and even smell
samples from ASU's extensive meteorite collection. In these sessions,
students gained insight into how scientists study the origins of planets
and search for habitable environments beyond Earth.
Having attended a number of Origins Project events, Rosenthal knows that origins questions--the origins of the universe, the origins of planets, the origins of life--are perfect for getting kids interested in science. Rosenthal, who teaches a unit on astrobiology to her honors students, was excited by the opportunity to bring her students to ASU to speak with scientists about meteorites and the plausibility of extra-terrestrial life. The trip was a "great success," Rosenthal reported, with students characterizing the day's activities as "so cool."
As a biogeochemist who studies the origins of Earth’s habitable environment, Anbar agrees that the combination of origins, astrobiology and education is a compelling way to teach science. “The best way to teach science is to get the students engaged in answering a ‘big’ question that excites them,” said Anbar. “That’s true whether the students are kids in a kindergarten classroom or senior citizens in an online course. Few questions are more exciting to more people than ‘Are we alone?’”
Founded in 2008, ASU’s Origins Project is a university-wide transdisciplinary initiative aimed at facilitating cutting edge research and inquiry about origins questions, enhancing public science literacy, and improving science education. Since its inception, the Origins Project has brought the world’s leading scientists, including Nobel Prize winners, to Tempe to explore questions about origins. The Origins Project has hosted workshops and public events that have focused on questions as fundamental as the origin of the universe, how life began, the origins of human uniqueness, and the origins of morality.
The ASU Astrobiology Program is a transdisciplinary research and education effort to characterize and understand the distribution of life beyond Earth. ASU’s astrobiologists lead one of 14 national teams that comprise the NASA Astrobiology Institute, a virtual organization that studies the origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. The ASU Astrobiology Program, established in 1998, is currently supported by a 5-year, $6.5 million NASA grant, “Follow the Elements”, that enables 50 faculty, staff and students to study how the chemical requirements of biology affect the prospects for life on other worlds.
The ASU Mars Education Program provides workshops, field trips, and other opportunities for teachers and students to join with scientists in the excitment of Mars exploration. In addition, the program offers professional-development conferences to train teachers how they can use space exploration to fire up their students' imaginations, while at the same time integrating STEM themes (science, technology, engineering, and math) and inquiry-based learning into the curriculum.