1. How could one obtain food on Mars?
Search and deductive reasoning

2. Teacher Guide
This lesson is designed to teach kids to ask a critical thinking question that you can’t just put into a search box to solve. To do that, we encourage them with smaller questions that search can help them answer. Make sure that you read the notes for each slide. They not only give you teaching tips but also provide answers and hints so you can help the kids if they are having trouble.
Resources
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3. About this Lesson
This lesson is designed to teach the Common Core State Standard: Reading—Informational Text
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.3 Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.5 Describe the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison, cause/effect, problem/solution) of events, ideas, concepts, or information in a text or part of a text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.9 Integrate information from two texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.
Nell Bang-Jensen is a teacher and theater artist living in Philadelphia, PA. Her passion for arts education has led her to a variety of roles including developing curriculum for Philadelphia Young Playwrights and teaching at numerous theaters and schools around the city.
She works with playwrights from ages four to ninety on developing new work and is especially interested in alternative literacies and theater for social change.
A graduate of Swarthmore College, she currently works in the Artistic Department of the Wilma Theater and, in addition to teaching, is a freelance actor and dramaturg. In 2011, Nell was named a Thomas J. Watson Fellow and spent her fellowship year traveling to seven countries studying how people get their names.

4. Could astronauts grow food on Mars?
Farming on Mars
Could astronauts grow food on Mars?

5. 1 2 3 4 5 Farming on Mars Could astronauts grow food on Mars?
Web Search/Thinking
Why might astronauts want to grow food on Mars? 2
Web Search
Besides providing food for astronauts, what other benefits could there be to growing plants on Mars? 3
Can plants grow in an environment without gravity? 4
How much sun does Mars get compared to Earth? Why is this important to know? 5
What does it mean to grow a plant hydroponically? Why would this be important to growing food on Mars?

6. Farming on Mars
Could astronauts grow food on Mars?
5 minutes

7. 1 2 3 4 5 Farming on Mars Could astronauts grow food on Mars?
Web Search/Thinking
Why might astronauts want to grow food on Mars? 2
Web Search
Besides providing food for astronauts, what other benefits could there be to growing plants on Mars? 3
Can plants grow in an environment without gravity? 4
How much sun does Mars get compared to Earth? Why is this important to know? 5
What does it mean to grow a plant hydroponically? Why would this be important to growing food on Mars?

8. 1 2 3 4 5 Farming on Mars Could astronauts grow food on Mars?
5/10/ :15 PM
Farming on Mars
Could astronauts grow food on Mars? 1
Web Search/Thinking
Why might astronauts want to grow food on Mars? 2
Web Search
Besides providing food for astronauts, what other benefits could there be to growing plants on Mars? 3
Can plants grow in an environment without gravity? 4
How much sun does Mars get compared to Earth? Why is this important to know? 5
What does it mean to grow a plant hydroponically? Why would this be important to growing food on Mars?
(Possible queries: “for kids, why do astronauts want to grow food on Mars”, “for kids, growing food on Mars”).
From
In the coming decades, NASA has big plans for Mars, including intentions to blast a fifth rover onto the planet’s surface by 2020 and send a manned mission by But long before humans step onto Mars’ barren terrain, scientists and researchers from around the world want to understand more about its potential to support human life. They're especially interested in the possibility of growing plants on Mars, a more efficient process that would partially remove the need to ship expensive freeze-dried rations to the planet.
“For a long-term settlement, there is probably no other option than growing food on Mars,” says Angelo Vermeulen, a Belgian artist and scientist who was the crew commander of the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation Site (HI-SEAS) a six-person, NASA-funded team that spent four months last year on the hills of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii to study and experiment with ways to prepare foods on Mars.
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

9. 1 2 3 4 5 Farming on Mars Could astronauts grow food on Mars?
5/10/ :15 PM
Farming on Mars
Could astronauts grow food on Mars? 1
Web Search/Thinking
Why might astronauts want to grow food on Mars? 2
Web Search
Besides providing food for astronauts, what other benefits could there be to growing plants on Mars? 3
Can plants grow in an environment without gravity? 4
How much sun does Mars get compared to Earth? Why is this important to know? 5
What does it mean to grow a plant hydroponically? Why would this be important to growing food on Mars?
(Possible queries: “for kids, benefits of growing food on Mars”, “for kids, why do astronauts want to grow food on Mars?”).
From
Plants offer a promising solution in providing food to astronauts thousands of miles from Earth. They could grow crops that would not only supplement a healthy diet, but also remove toxic carbon dioxide from the air inside their spacecraft and create life-sustaining oxygen.
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

10. 1 2 3 4 5 Farming on Mars Could astronauts grow food on Mars?
5/10/ :15 PM
Farming on Mars
Could astronauts grow food on Mars? 1
Web Search/Thinking
Why might astronauts want to grow food on Mars? 2
Web Search
Besides providing food for astronauts, what other benefits could there be to growing plants on Mars? 3
Can plants grow in an environment without gravity? 4
How much sun does Mars get compared to Earth? Why is this important to know? 5
What does it mean to grow a plant hydroponically? Why would this be important to growing food on Mars?
(Possible queries: “for kids, can astronauts grow plants on Mars?,”, “for kids, can plants grow without gravity?”).
From
When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.
Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't need it to flourish. The research team from the University of Florida in Gainesville thinks this ability is related to a plant's inherent ability to orient itself as it grows. Seeds germinated on the International Space Station sprouted roots that behaved like they would on Earth--growing away from the seed to seek nutrients and water in exactly the same pattern observed with gravity.
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

11. 1 2 3 4 5 Farming on Mars Could astronauts grow food on Mars?
5/10/ :15 PM
Farming on Mars
Could astronauts grow food on Mars? 1
Web Search/Thinking
Why might astronauts want to grow food on Mars? 2
Web Search
Besides providing food for astronauts, what other benefits could there be to growing plants on Mars? 3
Can plants grow in an environment without gravity? 4
How much sun does Mars get compared to Earth? Why is this important to know? 5
What does it mean to grow a plant hydroponically? Why would this be important to growing food on Mars?
(Possible queries: “for kids, how can astronauts grow food on Mars”, “for kids, plants on Mars, sunlight”).
From
Mars' surface receives about half the sunlight Earth does, and any pressurized greenhouse enclosure will further block the light reaching plants, so supplemental light will be needed. Supplying that light requires a significant amount of power.
Students should understand, or conduct a further search to learn, that plants require light to grow. Light is like food for plants; they are able to convert it into energy to survive through a process called photosynthesis.
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

12. 1 2 3 4 5 Farming on Mars Could astronauts grow food on Mars?
5/10/ :15 PM
Farming on Mars
Could astronauts grow food on Mars? 1
Web Search/Thinking
Why might astronauts want to grow food on Mars? 2
Web Search
Besides providing food for astronauts, what other benefits could there be to growing plants on Mars? 3
Can plants grow in an environment without gravity? 4
How much sun does Mars get compared to Earth? Why is this important to know? 5
What does it mean to grow a plant hydroponically? Why would this be important to growing food on Mars?
(Possible queries: “for kids, growing plants hydroponically”, “for kids, growing plants on Mars, hydroponically”).
From
Future astronauts may grow some of their meals inside greenhouses, such as this Martian growth chamber, where fruits and vegetables could be grown hydroponically, without soil.
Students should understand from this description that hydroponically means “without soil”. If scientists are testing how food can be grown hydroponically in order to see if it’s viable to grow plants on Mars, this suggests that there is not soil available on Mars (at least not soil that has a similar composition to the soil on Earth).
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.