To place a student's Mars weight in an Earthly context, obtain approximately 50 lbs. of potatoes and some potato sacks, and bring a bathroom scale to the classroom. Once the students determine their Mars' weight, have each one fill a potato sack with that weight, using the scale to keep track. For a 65-lb. student, for instance, the potato sack would weigh 24 lbs. Record each potato sack weight, then add and average them to get an average “sack of potatoes” Mars weight for all the students.
Have the students calculate the Mars weight of the largest animals on Earth, including the blue whale (300,000 lbs.) and the elephant (9,200 lbs.). Divide the class into teams. Ask each team to determine how many “Mars elephants” it would take to re-create an “Earth” elephant. The first team that answers correctly gets to pick the next giant animal, and the teams can resume play.
After teaching the class how to define weight and mass, have them “land” on the Red Planet by combining their Earth weight with the weight of a Mars Rover (approximately 2,300 Earth lbs.) How many students would it take to equal the weight of a Mars Rover?
Mars weight is the lightest in comparison to Earth weight; its counterpart is Jupiter, the heaviest atmosphere in terms of gravitational pull and mass, where a 65-lb. student would weigh more than 150 lbs. Collect the students' weights from the papers they brought in (keep the students' individual weights confidential). Divide the class into two teams: Team Jupiter and Team Mars. Combine the Earth weights and present the number to each team. See which team can convert that number fastest into its planet's weight. Then, using the new number, see who can most quickly add the Jupiter and Mars numbers, and divide by two. The winning team is the first that calculates the "average" weight of Jupiter and Mars. See how closely the result is to the class’ combined Earth weight.
Use Mars weight games to support national and state standards for science instruction in upper-elementary and middle school. You can also tie the games into fiction or nonfiction reading assignments concerning space subjects in general or Mars in particular.