Mineral Fingerprinting

The Educator Guide has a script, materials list, and prep directions. Be sure to have it open and ready to help guide you through every activity. 

• If you have not already completed the prep for Science Series Activity 1, please refer to the S1 card for preparation. 
• Revisit the PLANETS Science Series Educator Guide if it has been a week or more since you completed Science Series Activity 1. 
• For this activity you will need Science Notebooks for each youth, plus Data Packets and Landing Ellipses for each group. 

• How can scientists find out whether life could have existed on Mars? 
• How do we know how old Mars rocks are? 
• How can we use infrared spectroscopy to identify a scientifically interesting landing site? 

• Interpret the unique spectral “fingerprints” of different minerals to identify them.  
• Apply their knowledge of which minerals are evidence of past water when evaluating landing sites. 

Some animals can see more colors than us. Butterflies can see ultraviolet light and certain reptiles can detect infrared light. 

• Consider showing one or more videos to youth to review the concepts. 
• "Spectrum" is singular and "spectra" is the plural form of the same word. 

Spectroscopy: a remote sensing technology that measures the intensity of reflected light from a substance for the purpose of identifying the substance