We have a wonderful update for you today, reporting on the tremendous work done by the students at Colegiul National in Iasi, Romania, using Mars Webcam images as input for some excellent creative and scientific activities.

As we reported earlier, the Mars Webcam team here at ESA/ESOC were able recently to assist a school outreach project organised in cooperation with the Mars Society Germany. As part of the plan, the Colegiul National in Iasi, a junior college in north-eastern Romania, downloaded a selected set of VMC images and prepared a project report with the students' analysis and interpretations. In fact, their activities went well beyond a simple project report!

The school formed a 'Next Generation' team of students (middle-school and junior high school age - all interested in "physics, geography and everything new") and teachers, and they spent the six intensive weeks after receipt of the VMC image set, which was acquired on 3 April 2010, working on a whole series of activities.

Early in June, Mars Express Spacecraft Operations Engineer Hannes Griebel and myself had the pleasure of participating in a video conference with the students, conducted between their school library and the MEX Dedicated Control Room (DCR) here at ESA/ESOC. The students conducted a keynote presentation - in English, German and French - for us, reviewing the activities they had undertaken in the past weeks.

Click on 'Full story' for complete details and to access links to some of the school's excellent output -- Daniel

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