Lab 1: Analyzing The Martian Fingerprint (geochemical Baseline)
Objective: Students will identify the mineralogical properties of Martian regolith using data from the Martian rovers that is available on NASA's website. Students will chart their data and analyze the data in the decision process of which site offers the best option for creation. Students will there share their findings and the reasons they have chosen a specific site with the class in order that a discussion of beneficial sites can be had. In this section we will also be starting our simulated regolith by having students manually cross basalt rock used for gas grills. After some effort by the students, they see a demonstration that simulates some of the mechanical weathering processes needed to create fine-grained soil. I will use thermal shock to break up basalt lava rock commonly used in a gas grill by using heating and cooling cycles if this fails to produce fine particles sand can be substituted.
- Oklahoma Standard: 8.ESS1.3 (Analyze and interpret data to determine scale properties of objects in the solar system).
- Procedure:
- Mineral Analysis: Students compare the oxide concentrations (SiO₂, MgO, CaO) found in data from the Martin rovers reports provide by NASA. - Students will present this data in a Graph forms showing different sites and different concentrations of mineral.
- Sieving: students sort crushed basalt into grain sizes, targeting the 0.125–0.150 mm range – Students will Formulate a hypothesis how to weather different particulate size affect the soil building process and how?
- Weathering Simulation: Teachers demonstrate thermal shock by heating basalt lava rock to high temperatures and rapidly dousing it with cold water to fracture the stone, mimicking the breakdown of parent rock. This helps reinforce the laws of thermodynamics demonstrating the correlation to earth mechanical decomposition cycle. - This provides an excellent segue discussion on the difference between mechanical and organic decomposition for the next lab.
- Water retention test - Place a filter paper inside the neck of the funnel or inverted top-half of the plastic bottle. Add 100 ml of dry uncompacted regolith simulant into the funnel over the filter. Place funnel and regolith in a catch basin over 200 milliliters this should avoid any possible spills. Slowly pour 100 ml of water evenly and not in one spot over the top of the regolith. Let all the excess water drip through into your catch container until it slows to an occasional drop. Pour the drained water from the bottom container into your measuring tool to find its volume. Subtract the drained water volume from your starting 100 ml. The remaining amount is what your soil retained
- Scientific Inquiry:
- The students will have achieved different qualities of regolith how does your result differ from other students?
- Does the particle size of raw regolith affect its ability to hold water and nutrients compared to Earth soil?
- Should our Martian soil development concentrate on a specific size for mixture in order to achieve the best water retainment?
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