Cupcake Core Sampling

Simulate soil sample assemblages. Individuals create soil layers in a cup. They then use straws to collect core samples from these layers. What information can they glean from the core samples, I wonder?

Ice cores provide scientists with knowledge of historic melt layers, air temperatures, greenhouse gases, and climate stability. Scholars work in groups to build layers representing snow and ice over thousands of years. Then, groups...

Students draw an accurate geologic cross section by using a given data table. They relate the features of the cross section to geologic processes. Students then relate the characteristics of the bedrock to the architecture.

Relate this to real-world drilling and why drill bits are used to churn up and break up rock in the sampling path. Explain to students that core sampling is one way that geologists determine the geologic formation of rocks and sediments...

Take the old baking soda and vinegar volcano to the next level by using it to study repeated lava flows over time, examine geologic features on Earth and Mars, and speculate about some of the formations on Mars. 

Students hypothesize about why various samples of coal have different characteristics. Pupils use information that they found during Internet searches to ascertain the validity of their hypotheses and verify the "story" of coal. ...

Students sample goodies from an unseen ocean floor and try to accurately describe their composition. This simulation helps students explain the limitations of sampling and the problem of obtaining representative samples of sea floor...

Students explore what is beneath the surface of the earth is one of the jobs of a geologist. Rather than digging up vast tracts of land to expose an oil field, or to find coalbearing strata, core samples can be taken.

This activity is an inquiry-based, earth science field investigation of the geology of southeast Minnesota. Learners will make observations of rock outcrops and landforms in the region using maps, pictures, and field sampling, then use...

Juvenile geologists drill clear plastic straws down into a playdough sedimentary rock model, pulling out sample rock cores. As they analyze their cores, they apply the law of superposition and discover that originally horizontal layers...