What we're doing here (on the internet)

What the educational outreach from this blog is meant to be includes two aspects: creation and discussion of items related to Mars, and a coordinated lecture or series of lectures from the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) to classrooms around the continent.

For items related to Mars, I will post here as often as I can. Readers may comment, and I will try to address any comments made as a way of conducting discussion.

For "lectures from Mars," I will be finding appropriate times to use the VoIP software Skype to call classrooms and talk to them. Each talk will have a particular subject or two, and will be accompanied by a few PowerPoint slides, so that I can deliver the lecture without actually being present. I will try to coordinate lecture topics with classroom curricula as closely as possible, and will involve the rest of the expert crew at MDRS as well. For the moment, we expect to hold "lectures from Mars" only during the week of 25-29 February, as the first week of the mission (17-24 February) will be needed to conduct maintenance and upgrades of the Simulation Habitat in which we will live. Internet access from the Habitat may be difficult, as bandwidth limitations (which greatly affect Skype) apply. We hope to have these solved by February 25th.

Stay tuned for more updates.