Explore Mars with GIS!
With the attention on the 2021 landing of the Perseverance Rover on Mars, and continued exploration, you and your students can explore the Red Planet with powerful yet easy to use 2D and 3D mapping tools powered by ArcGIS from Esri.
Explore Mars is a 3D mapping and exploration tool where you can investigate landforms on Mars, including the landing sites of all previous and current rovers, craters, volcanoes, plains, the polar areas, and more. The tool is based on the ArcGIS API from Esri and runs completely in a browser with nothing to install and nothing to log into. This Mars 3D viewer can be used to teach topics such as scale, regions, and more, in geography, technology, mathematics, astronomy, and other classes, from primary to university level. I can attest that I have used it across those educational levels throughout the past year with great engagement and success. For more, read this essay from my Esri colleagues and see it in action via my video.
Ideas, approaches, and questions to pose to students for hands-on work are given below. I welcome your comments and suggestions for how you use these tools in your own classrooms!
1. Use the measure tools to measure the diameter of the entire planet. How does Mars compare to the Earth's diameter? Measure tools allow you to easily create 3D profiles and measure height, length, area, and depth (see image below, for example). Next, use the tools to measure the size of the Jetzero Crater, where Perseverance landed, the cliff escarpment leading up to the shield of the Olympus Mons volcano, and other features. How does the Olympus Mons escarpment compare to the escarpment at Niagara Falls, or the north face of K2 in the Himalayas?
2. Scale sometimes is a concept that is challenging to help students understand. Mars may be smaller than Earth but does include some mighty big features, some of which are the largest in the solar system. Compare the size of the country or USA state of your choice to by placing countries and states "on top of" Mars. Try it with Olympus Mons--it is as big as New York State! Place the Grand Canyon or Mt Everest on the amazingly deep and wide Valles Marineris. If this doesn't make your students say "wow", I don't know what will! Truly amazing tools.
3. Explore the Mars North Pole area and the South Pole area. What differences do you observe? Do additional research and explain these differences. What differences do you see in terms of physical features in the polar areas versus elsewhere on Mars? What are the differences between the poles on Mars and the poles on Earth?
4. I am proud to have worked at the USGS for many years, and my colleagues there created the following geologic map of the Jezero Crater and the Nili Planum region on Mars, around which they have wrapped interactive mapping tools, so you can use it as well to teach with and learn from, here. For more layers to examine, examine this article Explore Mars with GIS from my Esri colleague and this amazing story map.
5. Note the latitude and longitude values in the 3D Mars mapping tool as you are exploring. How are these values determined on the planet Mars? How are these values determined on other planetary bodies? That is one subject that the International Cartographic Association Commission on Planetary Cartography deals with, along with many others, here. Ask your students: Why is there no 'east and west' longitudes on Mars? Unlike on Earth, the longitude values increase from 0 to 360 on Mars. Where is the Prime Meridian on Mars and how was it determined? Read this to find out. Determine the latitude-longitude location of your school on the Earth. Determine where this latitude-longitude location would be on Mars (accounting for the longitude differences as described above). Refer to this USGS Mars map with the latitude-longitude lines on it. If your school in Denver Colorado was at 39.7 North and 105 West, in what feature would your school in the equivalent Mars location be (at 39.7 North, 180+(180-105)=255 East)? In the case of Denver, the "equivalent" location on Mars is on the Alba Patera plateau, which looks a bit like a kneecap (!), below (with a blue dot for 39.7 North 255 East).
6. Examine other celestial objects via maps. The USGS planetary mapping group out of Flagstaff Arizona have been mapping the Moon, Mars, Io, Ganymede, Mercury, the Sun, and other celestial objects for a long time, that you can examine via searching the USGS online store.
7. Compare and examine the many craters on Mars. One of my colleagues placed some tiles and maps in ArcGIS Online, here and shown below. Where are the largest 3 craters and the deepest 3 craters on Mars? Sorting the table of data, zooming to each feature, and using the measure tools build students' GIS and investigative skills. These are the same tools and skills that they use for Earth observations and thus are easily transferred to Mars investigations. How do these craters compare to the shape and size of Meteor Crater Arizona, or other craters on Earth?
8. Dig deeper! Give the students a list of, say, 3 latitude-longitude coordinates. Of these 3 locations, which would be the best location for a new Rover based on a small set of criteria, such as slope (flat), no ice, and no sand? Then show them the landing site for the 2021 mission, the one eventually determined to be optimal: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/science/landing-site/. Was the 2021 site flatter or more rough than previous landing sites? Why wasn't an even flatter location chosen, such as the vast lava fields, the maria, or other sites? Perhaps they were not deemed as interesting? Could a future rover tackle the Valles Marineris or Olympus Mons?
9. Investigate ancient oases on Mars by reading this article https://www.usgs.gov/news/new-usgs-maps-mars-reveal-ancient-oases - and then using this map: https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/sim3359 and the 2D and 3D mapping tools described above.
10. An encouragement and a warning: Enjoy teaching and learning with these amazing tools, but a friendly warning: These tools are addictive and make wonderful tools for teaching and learning! My favorite area on Mars? Check out the convoluted set of canyons intersecting at right angles at the east end of the Valles Marineris. Fascinating!