A short while ago we were sent a book – Moving to Mars, Building a Colony on the Red Planet. Now I must admit my son has always had an interest in space and lately he has been quite into fantasy space themed books and programs, stories where people need to set up a new world, so when this book arrived I was sure he would be interested.

He started reading it and although he found the facts about Mars interesting it was really when he got into the ideas on how you could potentially make Mars habitable that it really got him thinking. The ideas of how do you start this off, when you arrive on a new planet what would you do first? How would you deal with the atmosphere and the different climate? What about growing food? or Water? And where do you live? How do you structure and build on a “hostile” planet?

I could see these thought really got him thinking and we had a few discussions about what could work and why (I must admit after reading about Mars I would not be one of the people to volunteer to go and live there). But my son is more adventurous and he loves thinking through what would be the problems, how could you overcome these issues and would you really be able to form a new colony on a new uncharted planet.

As a home educator I found the the first part of the book was filled with lots of interesting facts about Mars and I have to admit that I think they managed to explain some rather complex concepts really well (better than I would have ever been able to explain them).

But the second part, the part which is more about possible options and possible ways to live on Mars (so not so factual) is the part that I think most home educators would find fascinating and would be the part that I think could inspire some fun creative writing and even some research. I have always liked books which inspire imagination and thinking outside of the box and I think this one does that. It combines facts with potential options which makes it even more engaging and interesting.

My son and I both enjoyed learning more about Mars and going on a bit of a “Would that really work” journey.

I have not spotted this book at our local library or bookstore yet (I think it may still be a bit new) but I did see it on Amazon so for those interested I am including an Amazon Link here – Moving To Mars.

Admin – As I mentioned above I was sent this book. However the fact that the moving to Mars bit inspired my son had nothing to do with us getting a copy of the book, he picked it up and read it because he thought it was interesting.

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