Inside ASU's Planetary Imaging Facility, two teams of scientists are intently debating their latest research. A couple weeks before, they had sent commands up to NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, directing the imaging equipment on board -- designed by ASU scientists and engineers -- to take a picture. Now, in separate labs divided by a large window, the science teams spend the morning discussing the location of the Martian surface they have imaged. They wait in earnest as those images, never before viewed by human eyes, beam down to Earth. Then the real work begins, as they analyze the data, looking for erosion patterns, river gullies, perhaps sedimentation within crater formations.

In the afternoon, they'll take a short break from their work. One group, a team of visiting Ph.D.s from NASA, will relax in the lounge with coffee and doughnuts. The other, a class of 5th-graders from Mercury Mine Elementary School in Phoenix, will sit cross-legged on the lawn with their snacks.

It's all in a day's work at ASU's world-class center for the study of Mars. The facility includes the operations centers for research teams working with instruments on board NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey spacecraft. It also houses a 3,000-square-foot K-12 education center, which opened last year as part of an expansion of the former space flight facilities.

Sheri Klug directs ASU's Mars K-12 programs and also is contracted by Jet Propulsion Laboratory to facilitate the NASA-funded Mars Student Imaging Project (MSIP) just described. This high-profile program is the only one of its kind in the country.

"We based this on the process of what the science teams actually go through,"explained Klug. "We don't treat the kids like kids; we treat them like scientists, and they truly rise to the occasion."

Klug and her team create hands-on activities that translate current Mars research into the basic science concepts the children will learn in school. It's more than just worksheets and simulations. It involves the students with authentic Mars mission data in real time, something no other NASA program does.

"It's almost unreal,"said Jose Luis Maytorena, a high school student from Nogales, Ariz., who participated in MSIP last year. "You feel like an actual scientist, and it opens up your horizons for the future and it gives you something to look forward to."

ASU's Mars outreach programs introduce thousands of school children to space exploration with tours of the flight facilities, teacher workshops onsite and across the country, school visits and much more. To learn more or to schedule a class tour of the facilities, call (480) 965-1790, or visit http://marsed.asu.edu on the web.

A program coordinator listens at the podium as sixth- and seventh-graders from the Olympia School District in Central Illinois answer questions during a press conference on the Mars Student Imaging Project.

The path to Mars goes through ASU

Bold return to Mars

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