While the focus of the Mars Advanced Schools will revolve around most aspects of the Red Planet, in time the teachings could evolve into broader comparative planetology topics depending on the availability of lecturers (e.g. Mars and Moon; Mars and Venus; Mars and Astrobiology; etc).
Given the timing of the launch of the Yinghuo-1 mission to Mars, the 2011 Mars School would focus on the scientific objectives covered by this mission (atmospheric and ionospheric topics), together with other broader topics in our understanding of the planet Mars