In this short video and accompanying activity and readings, students learn how each rock has a unique story about how it formed and how the forces of erosion shape what it looks like today. There are places where, long ago, big pockets of magma cooled deep underground, and after years and years of erosion, we can now see this igneous rock at the surface of the Earth. This video shows how we can see one of these locations in North Carolina - a granodiorite pluton called Stone Mountain.

This resource was created as a virtual lab demonstration to help students understand the composition of rocks in the earth's crust. It practices using a dichotomous key. The presentation is set up as a storyboard to help students understand how rocks in the earth's crust consist of only a few types of minerals. Scientists use the physical and chemical properties of rocks to identify the mineral composition in the rock, thus identifying the rock type.  I use this interactive presentation to introduce rocks and minerals. Typically it is the precursor to a lesson on the rock cycle. It is highly interactive and gives the students immediate feedback. This is very useful in the e-learning classroom environment.