ScienceMath6-8
Mars Travel Time Benchmark Worksheet for Grade 6 Science
By Jennifer T.
A worksheet built from the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission that has 6th graders use a known trip (48,678,219 miles in 203 days) as a benchmark to estimate travel times to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. It builds rate, unit conversion, and rounding skills through small-group calculation, and is designed for a 45-minute science block.
Customize for your classroom
Teacher Guide & Tips
- Project or copy the Mars travel data table so students can see the known distance and time before they begin; have them record it in their notebooks first.
- Discussion question: If the spacecraft travels at the same speed to Neptune, why does the trip take so much longer than the trip to Mars, and what does that tell us about distance and rate?
- Scaffold for struggling readers: provide a worked example that computes miles per day for Mars (about 240,000 miles per day), then have students apply the same steps to one planet at a time.
- Extension for advanced students: ask them to express each travel time in years to the nearest tenth and compare the results to the actual distances of each planet from Earth.
- Estimated time: about 30 to 40 minutes for small-group calculations, plus 5 to 10 minutes for whole-class sharing of answers.
ScienceMath6-8
Mars Travel Time Benchmark Worksheet for Grade 6 Science
By Jennifer T.
A worksheet built from the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission that has 6th graders use a known trip (48,678,219 miles in 203 days) as a benchmark to estimate travel times to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. It builds rate, unit conversion, and rounding skills through small-group calculation, and is designed for a 45-minute science block.
Customize for your classroom
Teacher Guide & Tips
- Project or copy the Mars travel data table so students can see the known distance and time before they begin; have them record it in their notebooks first.
- Discussion question: If the spacecraft travels at the same speed to Neptune, why does the trip take so much longer than the trip to Mars, and what does that tell us about distance and rate?
- Scaffold for struggling readers: provide a worked example that computes miles per day for Mars (about 240,000 miles per day), then have students apply the same steps to one planet at a time.
- Extension for advanced students: ask them to express each travel time in years to the nearest tenth and compare the results to the actual distances of each planet from Earth.
- Estimated time: about 30 to 40 minutes for small-group calculations, plus 5 to 10 minutes for whole-class sharing of answers.