Destination: Mars - ER - NASA

Lesson SixWhy Do WeExplore?About This LessonStudents will work in small teams, each of whichwill be given a different reason why humansexplore. Each team will become the expert ontheir one reason and will add a letter andsummary sentence to an EXPLORE poster usingtheir reason for exploration. With all the reasonson the poster, the word EXPLORE will becomplete. Students will be using the skills ofworking in cooperative learning teams, reading,summarizing, paraphrasing, and creating asentence that will best represent their reason forexploration. Students will also be illustrating andcopying other teams’ sentences so that eachstudent will have a small copy of the large classroomposter for reference or extension purposes.The teacher will lead a discussion that relates thereasons humans explore to the planned andpossible future missions to Mars.ObjectivesStudents will:• review the seven traditional reasons whypeople explore.• write a summary of their reason whyhumans explore.• illustrate their exploration summaries.• relate the reasons for exploration to themissions to Mars.BackgroundStudents do not always realize that the steps infuture exploration are built on a tradition ofexploration that is as old as humans. This lessonis intended to introduce the concept of explorationthrough the seven traditional reasons that expresswhy humans have always been explorers. Socialscientists know that everyone, no matter howyoung or old, is constantly exploring the worldand how it works. Space exploration, includingthe possible missions to Mars, has opened up a10/97 NASA JSC Destination: Mars 49