After students frame a research question, they help direct the Mars Odyssey to take images that will answer their question. In June, 2010, seventh grade science students at Evergreen Middle School in Cottonwood, California helped researchers discover a new series of lava tubes, including one with a pit crater. The students were looking for the most common sites for lava tubes on Mars, asking whether they are more prevalent near the volcano's summit, its flanks, or in the plains surrounding the volcano. The pit crater they discovered is in the form of a skylight above a lava tube, on the slope of the Pavonis Mons volcano.