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Moh's Hardness Test
Young geologists utilize Moh's hardness scale to help them correctly sort and classify different types of rocks. This lesson has everything you need, including an excellent example of the Mohs' Hardness Test, to successfully implement...
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Investigating Different Rock Types
Students analyze a rock using their eyes and then a hand lens. In this science instructional activity, students determine and discuss how hard or how easy it was to find and classify the assigned rock. Students record their observations...
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Rock Hounds
Young scholars receive a basis for understanding the three main classifications of rock: igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. They engage in a hands-on activity designed to give them an appreciation for rocks and minerals.
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Minerals and the Products of Mining
Students plot where minerals come from and have an awareness of how mineral use makes the world interdependent. They examine how to identify some sort of mineral products they use each day.
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Keying Rocks
Fifth graders observe several examples of types of rock and write about their similarities and differences in their science journals. They discuss their observations and discover that rocks are grouped according to the scientific...
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Processes of the Rock Cycle
Students explore, predict, and create each major rock form (sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous) with colored modeling clay, discover cycle of rock formation, and examine important relationships of heat and pressure in rock development.
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Modeling the Rock Cycle
Students explore the differences in sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks. They discuss the rock cycle of the different formations. Students discuss how rock is formed into different shapes. They explore, predict, and create each...
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Fairly Simple Rock Identification
Students study ways in which to identify rocks. They complete a number of activities that introduce them to various ways of identifying minerals in rocks.
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Exploring Rocks
Students recognize differences in the size, shape, texture, and color of different rocks. In this rocks lesson plan, students also learn and repeat back how a volcano erupts and make one out of a toilet paper tube.
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Rock Discovery
Fourth graders identify rocks in this discovery lesson by examining rock characteristics and processes. They identify basic properties of minerals and rocks. They revise their theories of the natural world, once they see and learn new...
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Classify Rocks
Students classify different types of rocks. In this earth science lesson, students test different rock samples and construct a chart to record observations. They create a concept map that answers essential questions.
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Science: What Happens to Create the Lode?
Students understand how mineral deposits are formed and why they are not evenly dispersed. They create and describe three different precipitates from four solutions simulating mineral ore deposit formation in sedimentary rock.
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Building-Stone Geology
Students examine building stones in downtown St. Petersburg in order t study igneous and metamorphic rocks in central Florida ( a huge area consisting solely of sedimentary rock). Each student picks a particular rock type used in a...
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Rock Sorting Activity
Students organize rock samples according to their properties. In this earth science lesson, students predict whether they are igneous, metamorphic or sedimentary. They compare their prediction with the actual type.
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Renewable and Non-Renewable Resources: Mining in B.C.
Students explore energy by categorizing rocks. In this British Columbia geology lesson, students define many different vocabulary terms associated with mining such as sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic. Students utilize sample rock...
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Earth Structure and Processes
Students classify different rocks according to their types. In this earth science lesson, students explain how plate tectonics created Earth's landforms. They explain the continental drift theory and sea floor spreading in their own words.
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Rocks and Minerals
Students are able to describe earth processes (e.g., rusting, weathering, erosion) that have affected selected physical features in students, neighborhoods. They are able to identify various earth structures (e.g., mountains, faults,...
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Mohs Hardness Test
Fifth graders listen as they are told about another way to classify rocks; by their hardness. They observe the Mohs Hardness Test overhead, discover how the test works, and then use materials such as pennies, butter knives, nails, and...
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Rock Identification Lab
Eighth graders compare and contrast the three different types of rock. In this earth science activity, 8th graders classify rock samples according to their correct rock type. They design their own data collection table.
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Bring A Rock
Young scholars investigate rocks and minerals. They collect a rock, describe it in writing, and in small groups divide their group of rocks into subgroups based on their team's classification.
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How to Recycle a Rock
Third graders explore the rock cycle and explore how rocks are made, changed, destroyed and recreated. They create representations of these processes with hands-on activities.
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Sediment Sleuths
Students classify sediments based on their physical characteristics, such as size, shape and color. They identify and describe rocks and minerals that are common to their region of the state.
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Pyrites
Learners examine the mineral pyrite and discover the differences between it and gold. In this mineral lesson students identify minerals using their common properties.
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Rust Never Sleeps
Students investigate oxidation-reduction reactions involving iron by conducting an experiment in which they expose iron filings to different atmospheric and ocean conditions. They relate the results to the oxidation banding patterns seen...