In this lesson, students will sort rocks. Students will sort based on hardness, texture, layering, and particle size. Students will also play a rock Bingo game.

This lesson is designed for students to develop investigational skills using observation and touch. The students will determine the characteristics they wish to use to categorize the rock samples. Because the students are working in small groups they will need to cooperate to decide on the criteria for sorting. Vocabulary words to be used include color, shape, texture, size, group and belong.

This article discusses geologic misconceptions held by teachers and students and provides resources for formative assessment and teaching correct concepts.

Students will be introduced to the rock cycle by scraping crayons to create small particles and then press and/or heat the particles to simulate rock formation processes.

Students will learn about additional mineral identification properties and how to use mineral tests to distinguish between similar looking specimens, and also study soil porosity and create and measure crystal growth.

This article provides links to inquiry-based, hands-on science lessons that teach elementary students about rocks and minerals. Literacy lessons and integrations are included for each science lesson.

In this activity, students will go outside and collect nonliving earth materials, and then work in collaborative groups to sort the materials into categories of their choosing. They will describe the materials in their journal using drawings and words.

This article profiles Dr. Anne Grunow, curator of the United States Polar Rock Repository, and discusses her work as a polar geologist.

In this lesson, students will think about the uses of rocks in the world around them. Students will look and write about what they find in the "Mystery Rock Boxes". Students will learn about salt, sand, granite, limestone, and pumice.

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.

Through playing the Rock Cycle Game students will gain an understanding of the cycles that form metamorphic, sedimentary and igneous rocks.

Suggestions and resources for hands-on activities to teach elementary students about rocks and minerals.

In this lesson, students will sort rocks. Students will sort based on hardness, texture, layering, and particle size. Students will read the book, 'Sylvester and the Magic Pebble' and make a class rock collection.

This issue of the free online magazine, Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, explores the basic characteristics of rocks and minerals, the types of rocks, the rock cycle, and the specimens found in the polar regions. Find lessons that allow students to observe rock and mineral specimens, perform classification exercises, and read to develop their content knowledge.

This article assembles free resources from the Rocks and Minerals issue of the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears cyberzine into a unit outline based on the 5E learning cycle framework. Outlines are provided for Grades K-2 and 3-5.

In this virtual resource, students will observe rocks in their own schoolyard and take a virtual field trip to Spencer Mountain, learning from a local historian and geologist about the natural and human history of the landform.

The wakelet site features videos demonstrating hands-on activities for students to complete at school in small, socially-distanced settings. Activities may also be adapted for at-home learning. Some activities incorporate an outdoor component, acknowledging the need to balance screen time with green time to support mental health. Tips for taking your students outside can be found here: https://education.eol.org/cnc_materials/TipsForTeachingOutside.pdf

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. 

This is an encyclopedia entry for the term "mantle." The mantle is one of the three main layers of the Earth. Text for this entry is appropriate for the middle and high school grade levels. An accompanying image set provides graphics to add to a lecture on the layers of the Earth.