PARTICIPATORY EXPLORATION OF MARS: EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCES NOW AND IN THE FUTURE

Students today are digital natives, engaged in an online, collaborative participatory culture, and increasingly exposed to educational technologies that allow them to learn through simulations of geologic processes, contributions to data analysis, and even discovery of new knowledge through personal and crowd-sourcing efforts. NASA's Be A Martian community numbers over 60,000 citizen scientists, and prototype 3D experiences are in the works for the Curiosity rover's landing to provide authentic "as if you were there" experiences of the Martian surface through the integration of digital terrain models and augmented-reality information, served through the cloud for hundreds of thousands of potential simultaneous "armchair explorers." Natural user interfaces (such as Kinect) that allow more freeform experiences of Mars are also being developed for "virtual field trips" and other "play" and "problem-solving" spaces. The challenge for education is to combine these technologies with learning theories in order to augment K-12 student achievement in Earth & Space sciences. This presentation will cover recent research in digital-age geoscience learning being conducted by NASA's Mars education projects, and present future possibilities and areas of further research.