Environ. Sci. Proc. 2021, 5, 23. https://doi.org/10.3390/IECG2020-08743 www.mdpi.com/journal/environsciproc Proceedings Lockdown in Mars † Laureen Vanessa Pérez Pinto * and Antonio Eff-Darwich Specific Teaching Department, Faculty of Education, University of La Laguna (ULL), 38204 Tenerife, Spain; adarwich@ull.edu.es * Correspondence: lvperezpinto@gmail.com; Tel.: +34-686-492-325 † Presented at the 3rd International Electronic Conference on Geosciences, 7–13 December 2020; Available online: https://iecg2020.sciforum.net/. Abstract: In this work, we present a series of educational activities that rely on geological tools to dive into the science of core standards. In this sense, Geology is not the subject to be studied, but the educational resource: we learn with Geology, rather than about Geology. Water is the common element to all activities, and the exploration of Mars (its geology, atmosphere, life conditions, etc.) becomes the engaging background. The primary objective of these activities consists of promoting the basis of scientific reasoning in students. Hence, we tested them with pre-service teachers, in order to investigate their opinions and comments about the strengths and weaknesses of our pro- posal as regards critical reasoning. Since the activities are so easy to carry out and they could be adapted to an online format, they might become an example of the kind of teaching-learning re- sources teachers should implement and/or carry out during lockdown conditions. Keywords: science teaching; Mars; water; pandemic 1. Introduction One of the main objectives of the latest educational reform carried out in Spain [1] is “to contribute to the foundation of a basic scientific culture and scientific literacy, both from a qualitative and experimental point of view”. Hence, it is expected that citizens will understand and use the tools of scientific reasoning in their daily life, to face problems and come up with ways to solve them. Experimental activities represent a key factor within the science learning-teaching process at all educational levels, since they favour a more positive attitude towards school science [2], increasing motivation and the development of scientific competences [3]. However, science teachers in Spain often encounter difficulties in implementing laboratory activities due to the lack of facilities and adequate material, excessive number of students and the “encyclopaedic” nature of the scientific–technological curriculum [4,5]. Nowadays, as the result of the restrictions imposed by the health and educational authorities to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, many spaces in educational centres, such as laboratories, computer classrooms and technology workshops have been transformed into standard classrooms. Henceforth, the time spent by students in classical science-related practical activities has dropped dramatically. This problem is expected to be partially overcome by incorporating technological tools (software, internet applica- tions, etc.) into the science teaching process [6]. All these educational technologies, as well as other didactical methodologies, have certainly played (and will play) an im- portant role during the pandemic. In this sense, Foundation La Caixa [7] carried out a large survey among more than 16,000 Spanish teachers about the didactical materials and resources used during the first wave of the pandemic. There is an interesting and con- tradictory result in this study: teachers are using new technologies and internet-related resources, but there has been a significant reduction in the number of activities that Citation: Pinto, L.V.P.; Eff-Darwich, A. Lockdown in Mars. Environ. Sci. Proc. 2021, 5, 23. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/IECG2020-08743 Published: 1 December 2020 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Copyright: © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses /by/4.0/).