AAAS Project 2061 Benchmarks met or addressed by the Design a Martian Challenge
Grades 3-5, 6-8

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Grades 3-5

The Physical Setting

Benchmark 4B
The Earth
• Things on or near the Earth are pulled toward it by the Earth's gravity.
• Air is a substance that surrounds us, takes up space, and whose movement we feel as wind.

The Living Environment

Benchmark 5C
Cells
• Some living things consist of a single cell. Like familiar organisms, they need food, water, and air; a way to dispose of waste; and an environment they can live in.

Benchmark 5D
Interdependence of Life
• For any particular environment, some kinds of plants and animals survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
• Insects and various other organisms depend on dead plant and animal material for food.
• Organisms interact with one another in various ways besides providing food. Many plants depend on animals for carrying their pollen to other plants or for dispersing their seeds.
• Changes in an organism's habitat are sometimes beneficial to it and sometimes harmful.
• Most microorganisms do not cause disease, and many are beneficial.

Benchmark 5E
Flow of Matter and Energy
• Almost all kinds of animals' food can be traced back to plants.
• Some source of "energy" is needed for all organisms to stay alive and grow.
• Over the whole Earth, organisms are growing, dying, and decaying, and new organisms are being produced by the old ones.

Common Themes

Benchmark 11A
Systems
• In something that consists of many parts, the parts usually influence one another.
• Something may not work as well (or at all) if a part of it is missing, broken, worn out, mismatched, or misconnected.

Grades 6-8

The Nature of Technology

Benchmark 3B
Design and Systems
• Design usually requires taking constraints into account. Some constraints, such as gravity or the properties of the materials to be used, are unavoidable. Other constraints, including economic, political, social, ethical, and aesthetic ones, limit choices.

The Physical Setting

Benchmark 4B
The Earth
• The Earth is mostly rock. Three-fourths of its surface is covered by a relatively thin layer of water (some of it frozen), and the entire planet is surrounded by a relatively thin blanket of air. It is the only body in the solar system that appears able to support life. The other planets have compositions and conditions very different from the Earth's.
• Climates have sometimes changed abruptly in the past as a result of changes in the Earth's crust, such as volcanic eruptions or impacts of huge rocks from space. Even relatively small changes in atmospheric or ocean content can have widespread effects on climate if the change lasts long enough.
• Fresh water, limited in supply, is essential for life.

Benchmark 4C
Processes that Shape the Earth
• The interior of the Earth is hot. Heat flow and movement of material within the Earth cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and create mountains and ocean basins. Gas and dust from large volcanoes can change the atmosphere.

The Living Environment

Benchmark 5A
Diversity of Life
• One of the most general distinctions among organisms is between plants, which use sunlight to make their own food, and animals, which consume energy-rich foods. Some kinds of organisms, many of them microscopic, cannot be neatly classified as either plants or animals.
• All organisms, including the human species, are part of and depend on two main interconnected global food webs. One includes microscopic ocean plants, the animals that feed on them, and finally the animals that feed on those animals. The other web includes land plants, the animals that feed on them, and so forth. The cycles continue indefinitely because organisms decompose after death to return food material to the environment.

Benchmark 5D
Interdependence of Life
• In all environments-freshwater, marine, forest, desert, grassland, mountain, and others-organisms with similar needs may compete with one another for resources, including food, space, water, air, and shelter. In any particular environment, the growth and survival of organisms depend on the physical conditions.

Benchmark 5E
Flow of Matter and Energy
• Food provides molecules that serve as fuel and building material for all organisms. Plants use the energy in light to make sugars out of carbon dioxide and water. This food can be used immediately for fuel or materials or it may be stored for later use. Organisms that eat plants break down the plant structures to produce the materials and energy they need to survive. Then they are consumed by other organisms.
• Energy can change from one form to another in living things. Animals get energy from oxidizing their food, releasing some of its energy as heat. Almost all food energy comes originally from sunlight.

Common Themes

Benchmark 11A
Systems
• A system can include processes as well as things.
• Thinking about things as systems means looking for how every part relates to others. The output from one part of a system (which can include material, energy, or information) can become the input to other parts. Such feedback can serve to control what goes on in the system as a whole.
• Any system is usually connected to other systems, both internally and externally. Thus a system may be thought of as containing subsystems and as being a subsystem of a larger system.

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