Looking forward to a new year of MARVELs...

Planet Earth is about to complete one revolution around the Sun. This means that the year 2016 is almost over, and it is time to draw a summary of activities and look at the future.

This MARVEL STEM site opened in March, and has since been updated with news of MARVEL STEM related activities. In 2016 the MARVEL team has engaged with schools, participated in scientific conferences (refer to entries in this blog), and linked with other sites (refer to Links tab). MARVEL has also participated in the Adelaide SpaceApps Challenge, where two groups of keen coders worked on problems related to the analysis of data from Mars, and provided exciting solutions.

In addition to our continuing quest for partners to help us bring MARVEL to schools, in 2017 we plan to start making available some educational material. This will mostly take the form of short sets of slides or videos, explanatory notes, and spreadsheets that teachers can use to integrate their class activities as appropriate. The team of MARVEL scientists will decide on the most exciting news from Mars, the MARVEL team educators will approve the material for different levels of learning, and the entire team will distill the core of the essential information, and present it in the simplest terms. The material will also comprise simple exercises and tests where these are appropriate. The material will be available for free to teachers via a registration system. There will be a new entry in this blog every time new material is ready for distribution.

With this last blog for 2016, the MARVEL STEM team wishes a wonderful 2017 to all supporters and promoters of science, education and space exploration enthusiasts. Per Aspera ad Astra!