Plan a Mission to Mars is a space exploration project based learning mission for 3rd, 4th and 5th grade. Mission Control has approved a new journey to Mars, but the crew, supplies, habitat, and exploration plan have not been chosen. That’s where your students come in.
Working in mission teams, students read about Mars and the real robots that have explored it, choose one of three missions, hire four astronauts, manage a $60,000 budget, design a safe habitat, plan a rover exploration, solve a Mars Mission Challenge Card, graph their mission data, and report back. Every choice they make early on shapes the rest of the mission.
This is a full PBL simulation, not a packet of worksheets. It works as a space unit, a STEM project, or two weeks of cross-curricular lessons.
What’s Included:
- Student mission booklet, 27 pages
- Whole-class slideshow, 25 slides
- Teacher notes, pacing guide, standards alignment and answer keys
- Google Slides version of the slideshow and the student booklet
- Three nonfiction passages with questions
- Five video connections from NASA and National Geographic
- Choose Your Mission and Meet the Astronauts
- Mission Budget and The Supply Store
- Design a Mars Habitat and Habitat Math
- Plan Your Mars Exploration
- 8 Mars Mission Challenge Cards with a solution guide
- Mission Data and Graph
- Mission Report, Mission Patch and Reflection
- Mission Letter
- Student Grading Rubric
- Optional extension activities
❤️ Why Teachers Love It:
✅ Low prep. Print the booklet, print and cut the challenge cards, open the slideshow, and teach.
✅ Cross-curricular by design. Science, math, reading and writing all serve the same mission.
✅ Math with a purpose. Budgets, area, perimeter, rover distances and a scaled bar graph.
✅ Every answer key is done for you, plus ideas to listen for on every challenge card.
✅ Print + digital. Works on paper, in Google Classroom, or both.
Standards:
NGSS: 3-5-ETS1-1 and 3-5-ETS1-2, engineering design connections through the habitat and the challenge (supporting connections, not a complete NGSS assessment).
Math CCSS: 3.NBT.A.2 and 4.NBT.B.4, 3.OA.D.8 and 4.OA.A.3, 3.MD.B.3, 3.MD.C.7 and 4.MD.A.3, 3.MD.D.8.
ELA CCSS: RI.3.1, RI.4.1, RI.5.1; RI.3.7, RI.4.7, RI.5.7; W.3.2, W.4.2, W.5.2; W.3.8, W.4.8, W.5.8; SL.3.1, SL.4.1, SL.5.1; optional W.3.1, W.4.1, W.5.1.
Please note: the Mars Exploration Team, the astronaut candidates and the mission itself are fictional, created for this simulation. No person has ever been to Mars. The Mars facts and the real missions and robots in the passages and videos are real and sourced.