Take our nationwide #TesStemChallenge, accredited by CREST Awards and blast off on your journey to Mars with your class or your science/Stem club aged 10-14.

Choose one of the three different challenges – taking four to seven hours of teaching time – and complete it between Thursday 8 November 2018 and Sunday 17 March 2019. 

You’ll be able to apply for the Discovery CREST Award on behalf of your students once the challenge is completed. Share your project photos and videos with us on hello@tes.com for the chance to win spectacular SAM Labs prizes in our prize draw.

Journey to Mars

Choose the challenge below that best suits your students. They can be taught across a series of individual lessons or in dedicated, off-timetable sessions, and are suitable for students aged 10-14 years. You can also create a larger project by completing all three challenges.

Manned Mission to Mars

Since the 1960s, space agencies around the world have carried out a variety of missions to Mars sending probes, orbiters, landers and rovers to find out as much about the red planet as possible. The next big step is a manned mission to Mars and a number of space agencies are working towards putting humans on the surface of Mars within the next two decades. These challenges ask students to look at three of the key elements required for a successful manned mission to Mars; the voyage there, the descent to the surface, and living on the planet itself.

Challenge 1 – The Voyage to Mars

To research the risks and challenges that astronauts will face during their nine-month voyage to Mars and design a manned space capsule which will be able to get a crew of six to Mars safely and in good health.

Challenge 2 – The Final Descent

Design a Mars lander that can safely deliver humans to the surface of Mars. Test different materials to evaluate their effectiveness as a heat shield. Build and test a model lander to protect a fragile payload (a raw egg!) from the impact of landing.

Challenge 3 – Somewhere to Live

Design, build and test a model structure made from raw spaghetti that meets the criteria given for a proposed habitat that humans will live in on the surface of Mars.

Competition entry

To win spectacular SAM Labs prizes, share your classes’ project photos and videos with us by emailing hello@tes.com between 8 November 2018 and 17 March 2019. Each photo or video submission will count for one additional entry in to the pize draw.

One lucky class will win a Classroom Kit worth £999.00 and three runner-ups will receive an Alpha Kit worth £129.00 each. Winners will be randomly selected and announced by 24 May 2019.

Terms and conditions apply.