Best STEM Book of the Year – The Martian by Andy Weir

Anna Thompson

Algebra, Geometry, and STEM teacher

Ely Memorial Middle and High School

MCTM Region 8 Director

Last year I picked up a book my eighth grade nephew was reading for his STEM class. I’m not much of a science-fiction reader these days, but I like to keep up on the books my students are reading and this one looked like believable sci-fi. As I read, I realized it was chock-full of mathematical problem solving that my students could understand. If you haven’t read The Martian or seen the movie, this article is not meant to be a spoiler.

Astronaut/botanist Mark Whatney finds himself stranded on Mars. His mission is no longer one of studying how plants will grow on Mars, but one of how to survive until the next manned mission returns to Mars in about four years.

Here’s where that math comes in. To start with, “days” on Mars are called “sols” and are about 39 minutes longer than a day on Earth (how many times have we said we just need one more hour in a day). The log entries in Mark’s journal are in sols, not days. A Martian year is 686.98 Earth days or 668.6 sols. Everything on Mars is measured in the metric system, giving us the opportunity to do multiple conversions. During an unexpected sandstorm, 175 kph (≈110 mph) winds force the team to abort their mission. On Sol 7, Mark figures the distance from Acidalia Planitia (where he is) to the Schiaparelli Crater (where the manned mission will land in four years) is 3200 km (≈ 1988 miles) or about the driving distance from Minneapolis to Los Angeles). On Sol 14, he figures how much soil he needs to cover the 92 square meters of his living area (called the Hab) to a depth of 10 centimeters. (For comparison, the area of the Hab is about one-fourth the size of a high school basketball court.) He figures he needs to transfer 9.2 cubic meters of Martian soil into the Hab, but he can only get one-tenth of a cubic meter in through the air lock at a time. On Sol 97, he describes how he uses hexadecimal digits and ASCII code to communicate with Earth. And of course, he uses the Pythagorean Theorem…..but you’ll have to read the book to find that reference.

Unfortunately, the language in the book would keep it off our middle school library shelves, but the movie is much tamer. It’s PG13, but with parent permission, I show it at the end of my semester-long STEM class.

Short on time? Watch the movie. I thought it was better than the book. It’s humorous, but you will find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat.

The Martian official trailer:

Related NASA resource:
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/follow-mark-watney-s-epic-trek-on-mars-with-new-nasa-web-tool