Mars

MATH ON (OR NEAR) MARS

	In Glory St. John’s How to Count Like a Martian (Random House, 1975), a mysterious beeping signal from Mars leads to a discussion of number systems used on Earth, among them Babylonian, Egyptian, Mayan, Greek, Chinese, and Arabic. The (four-fingered?) Martians apparently count in base 4. For ages 8-12. It’s out of print, but definitely worth tracking down. Check your local library.
	Space Math @ NASA is a collection of math problems featuring planetary topics for a range of age groups. At “Launch of the Mars Science Laboratory,” for example, kids use a sequence of launch images to determine launch speed and acceleration.
	Everyone makes mistakes. Wired magazine’s This Day in Tech  has an account of the fatal metric conversion error that resulted in the 1999 loss of NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter.
	Find out how much you’d weigh on Mars (and all the other planets) with this interactive calculator from the San Francisco Exploratorium.

MARTIAN ARTS

	Kids’ Art Project on the Planet Mars has instructions for making a papier mache planet and a solar system mobile, and designing a Martian city. Also see YouTube’s How to Create a Papier-Mache Solar System.
	The Mars Art Gallery has abstract art pertaining to Mars, photographic images (categorized in Orbital, Crater, Moon, and Surface Galleries), and resource links. Check out the Andy-Warhol-style Face on Mars.
	From Gustav Holst’s “The Planets,” listen to the first movement – Mars, the Bringer of War – performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
	Let’s put on a play! In Victoria Twead’s Morgan and the Martians (Feedaread.com, 2012), mischief-making Morgan is given a Shimmer Suit by visiting Martians that makes him invisible. He promptly uses it with disastrous results. For an expanding cast of Earthlings and Martians, ages 8-12 (or so).

RED PLANET POEMS

	Douglas Florian’s Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars (Harcourt Children’s Books, 2007) is a fun collection of space-themed poems and paintings, including one about the planet Mars. A “Galactic Glossary” provides brief background info on each poem. For ages 4-10.
	My favorite: the Martian astronomer of John Hall Wheelock’s poem Earth. Also found in the wonderful poetry collection Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle (HarperTeen, 1967).
	Nikki Giovanni’s “Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea (We’re Going to Mars)” is the title poem from Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not Quite Poems (William Morrow, 2002). (“We are going to Mars for the same reason Marco Polo rocketed to China/For the same reason Columbus trimmed his sails on a dream of spices…”)
	See Albert Bigelow Paine’s The Planet Mars.
	From the Academy of American Poets, see Marvin Bell’s Mars Being Red.
	John Updike’s Duet on Mars is a dialogue between rovers Spirit and Opportunity.
	According to Wikipedia, Martian poetry was a British poetry movement of the 1970s and 80s, characterized by “curious, exotic and humorous visual metaphors” – that is, viewing ordinary things as if through the eyes of a Martian. An example is Craig Raine’s A Martian Sends a Postcard Home.(Cool project. Try some of your own.)