Mars – Page 2 – Let's Learn All About It!

Table of Contents

MARTIAN LESSON PLANS AND ACTIVITIES

	The Mars Exploration Program website has a wealth of Mars-based information, including updates and images from the Curiosity rover, help for finding Mars in the night sky, a virtual Mars Trek, and more.
	Arizona State University’s Mars Education Program has detailed information, lesson plans, activities, and collaborative student-scientist projects for a range of ages.
	See Mars Activities for an excellent downloadable 128-page booklet of projects, games, and activities for grades K-12. Included are background information, instructions, and extension suggestions for 24 different activities, among them Rover Races, Volcano Mapping and Lava Layering, Searching for Life on Mars, Edible Mars Rover, and Mars Meteorites’ Fingerprints.
	From the Lunar and Planetary Institute, Mars Inside and Out has background information, a book list, and multi-part activities for kids ages 8-13. For example, kids model a Martian landscape and create a Martian board game.
	Mars, of course, is named for the Roman god of war. Learn all about Mars and his Greek alter-ego, Ares, from history teacher Mr. Donn.

SCI-FI MARS

	In Chris Gall’s There’s Nothing to Do on Mars (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2008), Davey Martin’s parents have moved to Mars and Davey shares the plight of all bored kids: “There’s nothing to do!” His parents send him and his robot dog, Polaris, out to play, but nothing solves the problem – not the mysterious giant face, the peculiar fossils, or the hordes of leaping pop-eyed Martians (smelly from lack of baths). Finally Davey and dog dig for buried treasure on top of Olympus Mons and unleash a massive eruption of water. This exciting find causes more and more people to move to Mars – and at the end of the book, Davey’s parents, feeling cramped, are considering a relocation to Saturn. The illustrations have a bright retro-comic-book look. (Polaris is particularly adorable.) A Kirkus Best Children’s Book of the Year. For ages 5-8.
	In Walter R. Brooks’s Freddy and the Men from Mars (Overlook Juvenile Books, 2011), the local newspaper reports that six little creatures with red whiskers, believed to be visiting Martians, have been captured by Mr. Herbert Garble, and are now on display at the Boomschmidt Circus. Freddy, the never-at-a-loss pig, rightly suspects a hoax, and prepares, with help from the Animal Bureau of Investigation, to track down the culprit. A lot of hilarious Freddy-esque confusion and complications ensue, including the arrival of real (pear-shaped, three-eyed) Martians. For ages 7-11. There’s also a sequel, Freddy and the Baseball Team from Mars (2011).
	For synopses of the 24 Freddy books, information on Freddy and Walter R. Brooks, a selection of poems by Freddy, and to become an official “Friend of Freddy,” see Freddy the Pig’s home page.
	In Kevin Emerson’s gripping Last Day on Mars (Walden Pond Press, 2018), Earth is long gone and its descendants are now living on Mars – a stop-gap solution while they prepare for a longer journey to a distant star. Liam and his friend Phoebe are among the last to leave Mars, as their scientist parents race to prepare for terraforming the new planet. Then there’s an explosion. And a dead alien. Edge-of-your-seat reading for ages 8-12. First of a series.
	In Jennifer L. Holm’s The Lion of Mars (Random House, 2021), eleven-year-old Bell has spent his entire life in the American colony on Mars – a planet now scattered with international colonies, though Bell’s remains strictly isolated from the others. Then the adults begin to fall seriously ill and it’s left to the kids to contact others for help. For ages 8-12.
	The main character of Daniel Manus Pinkwater’s Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars, originally published in 1979, is pudgy Leonard Neeble who is being tormented at school. His only friend is Alan Mendelsohn, a new kid ostensibly from the Bronx, who claims to be a Martian. The zany classic-Pinkwater plot involves a child psychologist who encourages Leonard to smoke cigars; Samuel Klugarsh, occult bookstore owner, who offers courses in Klugarsh Mind Control and Hyperstellar Archaeology; Clarence Yojimbo (from Venus), traveling with a biker gang visiting the Bermuda Triangle Chili Parlor; and Waka-Waka, an alternative plane of existence. Alan, in case you’re wondering, really is a Martian. The book is no longer available in a single edition, but can be found in Pinkwater’s collected 5 Novels (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997). For ages 9-12.
	For fans of Diane Duane’s Young Wizards series, A Wizard of Mars (Harcourt Children’s Books, 2010), has teenage wizards Nita and Kit investigating a message in a mysterious Martian artifact and re-opening an ancient conflict on that long-dormant world. This is Book Nine in the series; readers might want to work up to it by way of the first eight. (Book One: So You Want to Be a Wizard.) For ages 10 and up.
	Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles (Simon & Schuster, 2012), originally published in 1950, is a collection of linked short stories that comprise a chronological “future history” covering the exploration of Mars, colonization of the planet by humans fleeing a war-torn Earth, and conflicts with the native Martians. There are 28 stories in all, among them “Rocket Summer,” “And the Moon Be Still as Bright,” “The Fire Balloons,” and “The Million-Year Picnic.” For ages 13 and up.
	The Martian Chronicles was made into a five-hour TV miniseries in 1980, with Rock Hudson and Gayle Hunnicutt.
	There’s a digital copy of The Martian Chronicles on the planet Mars – it was delivered to the Martian North Pole by NASA’s Phoenix spacecraft in 2007. Read about it here.
	Edgar Rice Burroughs, though better known for his Tarzan series, also produced, in the first half of the 20^th century, eleven novels featuring Barsoom – the planet we know as Mars. The books star Civil War veteran John Carter, originally transported to Barsoom from a cave in the American Southwest. In the first book of the series, A Princess of Mars, he encounters the various races (four-armed green Martians, humanoid red Martians) and creatures (six-legged thoats) of Mars, becomes embroiled in war, wins the hand of the Martian princess Dejah Thoris, and finally – after a catastrophic failure of the planet’s Atmosphere Plant – collapses of asphyxiation and wakes up back on Earth. For a complete list of the books in order, see The Barsoom Glossary. Modern editions (Del Rey, 1985) are available.
	Texts of the first five Barsoom novels are available for free online.
	The recent movie version of Burroughs’s Barsoom, Disney’s John Carter (2012), stars Taylor Kitsch as Carter and Lynne Collins as Dejah Thoris, with a supporting cast of 12-foot-tall four-armed Martians. Rated PG-13.
	Sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein wrote several books set on (or related to) Mars. Specifically targeted at young readers is Heinlein’s Podkayne of Mars (Ace Trade Books, 2010), in which teenager Podkayne Fries and her brilliant but annoyingly mischievous younger brother, Clark, set off with their uncle on a spaceliner cruise to Earth. During a stopover on Venus, Clark is kidnapped and it turns out that the uncle is on a dangerous diplomatic mission. For ages 12 and up.
	In Heinlein’s Red Planet (Del Rey, 2006), main characters Jim Marlowe and Frank Sutton, along with Jim’s volleyball-sized fuzzy Martian pet, Willis, have just started the school year at the Lowell Academy boarding school. When the school headmaster, Mr. Howe, and the colonial administrator of Mars, Mr. Beecher, confiscate Willis and plan to sell him to a London zoo – and to block the annual migration of the Martian colonists during the winter months, in a move to save money – Jim, Frank, and Willis run away to sound the alarm. Eventually they take part in a battle in which the colonists defeat the restrictive administration and declare independence from Earth. They also help forge bonds between the native Martians and the colonists, largely through Jim’s close friendship with Willis. For ages 12 and up.
	C.S. Lewis, famed for the world of Narnia, accessible through the back wall of a wardrobe, also wrote science fiction. In Out of the Silent Planet (HarperCollins, 2005), originally published in 1938, Elwin Ransom, a Cambridge professor of philology, is kidnapped by the criminals Weston and Devine and taken by spaceship to Malacandra, the planet we know as Mars. There he escapes; makes friends with the local inhabitants, the hrossa – his linguistic skills come in handy here; is introduced to the nearly invisible spirit-like eldil; and meets Oyarsa, the great eldil who rules the planet. From Oyarsa, he learns that there is such an eldil for each of the four planets that have life, but Earth’s has turned evil and “bent” – thus Earth is known as Thulcandra, the “Silent Planet.”
	Sequels are Perelandra, a version of the Adam and Eve story, set on Venus, and That Hideous Strength, in which the conflict between good and evil continues on Earth. Complex and discussion-provoking. For ages 14 and up.
	In Andy Weir’s The Martian (Broadway Books, 2014), after a violent dust storm, astronaut Mark Watney – believed dead – has inadvertently been left behind and alone on Mars. Mark’s struggle to survive and return home (luckily he’s both a botanist and an engineer) makes for an absolutely terrific story. For teens and adults.
	Also see the 2015 film version of The Martian with Matt Damon as stranded astronaut Mark Watney. Rated PG-13.
	In Ben Bova’s 500+-page Mars (Bantam Spectra, 1993), Jamie Waterman, a Navajo geologist, is the last person to join the first manned expedition to Mars. The book is crammed with detail, human interest, intrigue, and adventure. (Try lethal meteor showers and mysterious cliff cities.) For teens and adults.
	Check out this list of Best Mars Science Fiction Books.

WAR OF THE WORLDS

	In H.G. Wells’s classic The War of the Worlds, originally published in 1898, Martians in Tripods (three-legged fighting machines) invade and devastate southern England, before succumbing to Earth bacteria. Available in many editions including War of the Worlds (New York Review of Books, 2005), illustrated by Edward Gorey, and an abridged Great Classics Illustrated version for ages 7-9. (Great Illustrated Classics has a complete list of available titles.)
	The complete text of War of the Worlds is available online.
	To listen to Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds broadcast, visit Mercury Theatre on the Air or Our Media: The War of the Worlds.
	In Virginia Hamilton’s Willie Bea and the Time the Martians Landed (Aladdin Books, 1989), Willie Bea’s extended family is caught up in the hysteria that surrounds Orson Welles’s scarily realistic broadcast of The War of the Worlds. For ages 9 and up.
	Gail Jarrow’s Spooked (Calkins Creek, 2018) is the story of Orson Welles’s famous War of the Worlds radio broadcast and its aftermath, when is sparked a national discussion about fake news, propaganda, and the media. For ages 10-14.
	Howard Koch’s The Panic Broadcast (Avon Books, 1973) is a complete account of Orson Welles’s famous radio show, by the man who wrote the radio play version of War of the Worlds. Koch details events before, during, and after the broadcast, and describes his trip to Grover’s Mill, NJ, where the action (supposedly) took place. The book is out of print, but inexpensive used copies are available. For teenagers and adults.
	Robert Rankin’s The Japanese Devil Fish Girl and Other Unnatural Attractions (Gollancz, 2011) is a zany comedic sequel to War of the Worlds, set in 1895, ten years post-invasion, by which time Victorian England, after a clever feat of back-engineering, has expanded its empire to Mars. Characters include Charles Darwin, Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Nikola Tesla, Winston Churchill, and Adolf Hitler, as well as the unfortunate showman Professor Coffin, whose audience has lost interest in his pickled Martian specimen – necessitating a search for the Devil Fish Girl. For quirky teenagers and adults. (Rankin, incidentally, is also the author of The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse.)
	Movie versions of War of the Worlds include a black-and-white 1953 adaptation with Gene Barry and Ann Robinson, rated G; and a 2005 adaptation, rated PG-13) starring Tom Cruise, Tim Robbins, and an extremely shrill Dakota Fanning. In both cases, the book is better.

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