Explore! Mars: Inside and Out!

Explore! Mars: Inside and Out!

There's more to the Red Planet than its distinctive coloring! Discover the tallest volcano and deepest valley in the Solar System; take an inside look at the planet's interior; and compare Mars to Earth.

Learn more about Mars.
Additional Mars activities are at Life on Mars.

Activities Overview

Scratching the Surface

These activities explore the features of Mars and Earth, include experiments to determine how these features form, and discuss what the features suggest about the history of Mars.

Setting the Scene
Compare Mars' surface features Earths’. Teams of "planetary investigators" examine images of volcanos, channels, and craters on Earth and Mars.

Carving Channels
Create channel features with flowing water, and use observations to draw conclusions about Mars' geologic past.

Volcanos - Go with the Flow
Using baking soda, vinegar, and Play-Doh, to model volcanic eruptions and map the lava flows.

Crater Creations
Create impact craters and examine the associated features. Observe images of Martian craters and explore how the mass, velocity, and angle of impactors affects the size and shape of the crater.

Mars: The Feature Story
Apply understanding of planetary features to a topographic (elevation) map of Mars.

Inside Mars

These activities compare Mars’ volcanos with Earth’s, and explore Mars’ history and what the volcanos tell us about what is happening inside Mars.

Summit Up - Comparing Volcanos on Mars and Earth
Make paper models to scale of the tallest volcanic mountains on Earth and Mars.

Puzzling Patterns - Where Does Volcanism Occur?
Compare volcano maps of Earth and Mars and identify patterns, similarities, and differences.

The Icing on the Plate - Why are the Volcanos on Mars so Tall?
Create models with cake icing to compare the volcanos formed on planets with stationary surfaces and planets with moving plates.

Recipe for a Planet
Build edible models of Earth and Mars to compare their sizes and illustrate their internal layers.

Cooling Planets
Discover which planet is hotter inside - Mars or Earth, by considering the effect of size (volume) on the cooling rate of objects.

Mind Over Mars
Create question cards and use existing ones for a Mars feature board game.

Get the solar system in your inbox.

Sign up for LPI's email newsletters