http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu./edu_life.php

Could Life Survive on Mars?On Earth, we call them extremophiles. They're life forms that live and thrive in hostile conditions, too difficult for most life on Earth. In some cases, rare bacterial spores lying dormant in bitterly cold, dry, and airless conditions, have survived for millions of years. Once conditions improve, they're "activated" or "brought back to life."

A new discovery found in Alaska, Carnobacterium pleistocenium, is believed to have been in ice dating back some 32,000 years. Finding and studying such extremophiles broadens scientists' understanding of possible life across the cosmos.

Could such extremophiles lie dormant in the Martian arctic? About every 100,000 years, for brief periods, liquid water may exist at the Martian poles, a region currently covered in water-ice. This may have made the soil environment habitable. Is it possible that extremophiles cycle through "active" and "dormant" states, dependent upon the changes in the Martian environment?

Phoenix may discover answers to some of these questions. It will help us evaluate the Martian polar environment, analyzing the soil for life-giving elements such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and hydrogen. Phoenix will look for chemical reactions that might indicate that the soil could sustain life. It will also measure the soil's pH and saltiness, traits that help determine habitability. In addition to looking for conditions that support life, Phoenix will also look at the soil for traits that inhibit life and growth.

Digging deep into the Martian soil, Phoenix will look for signs of life and conditions that could support life. And, perhaps evidence that extremophiles could be found there, too.

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu./edu_life_lessons.php

Elementary School Activity
Planets in a Bottle - Life on the Edge
Life on the Edge is an educational program that aims to expose grade school students to some of the basic principles of astrobiology and to explore the possibilities for life elsewhere in the Solar System. Students can begin to explore conditions on other planets with simple variations to the basic recipe.

Upper Elementary - Middle School Activities
Astrobiology
Astrobiology presents young thinkers with some intriguing questions about the universe and gives them the opportunity to explore topics related to the search for life beyond their own planet using some of the same strategies that astrobiolgists use.

Upper Elementary - High School Activities
Life on Earth and Elsewhere?
The hands-on activities in this resource guide lay the conceptual groundwork for understanding questions fundamental to the field of astrobiology. They enable students to examine the nature of life, what it requires, its limits, and where it might be found.

Middle School Activity
Are There Habitable Worlds Elsewhere?
Extreme Life Card Game
In this activity students explore how extreme life on Earth may serve as models for life elsewhere. They play a matching card game that helps them establish a link between extreme life on Earth to its Earth habitat and then to a possible habitat elsewhere in the solar system.

Research Activities
Habitable Worlds
Search the Solar System for Signs of Life

Astro-Venture
Search for and design a habitable planet.

Alien Safari
Discover some of the most extreme organisms on our planet, and find out what they are telling astrobiologists about the search for life beyond Earth.