Science Experiment - Martian Soil

Helen Hesketh and Julie Wiskow from the European Space Education Resource Office visited our Year 5 pupils on Friday 12th February to talk about Mars! There is a planned human mission to Mars in 2040, and today’s workshop was all about how the astronauts are going to survive on the planet.

They informed the children that from experiments done on Mars using Rovers, scientists have been able to determine what the ‘soil’ on Mars is likely to be like. These experiments then allow scientists to work out if it is possible for the astronauts to grow their own food while on Mars.

The children were given 3 soil samples which they had to run series of experiments on to determine which is the closest to Martian soil. The experiments consisted looking at the soil, as Martian soil is a red brown colour and should have a range of particle sizes, an infiltration test to check the permeability of the soil, an acidity test using litmus paper and an evaporation test to check whether the soil samples contained salt.