Below is a sneak peek of Hata's lesson about rocks and minerals. To begin, Hata read to the students a fabulous and poetic book about rocks called "If you find a rock" by Peggy Christian. In her book, Christian describes rocks for skipping, perfectly shaped "worry" rocks and huge rocks to climb on, in a manner that makes you yearn to hold or climb a rock to capture the magic within. After reading this book, any childhood interest in rocks will undoubtedly resurface!
Hata also approached the topic from a scientific perspective and discussed how rocks form. She described the 3 major categories of rock: sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic. For the project and to mimic the process of how sedimentary rock is formed, Hata provided students with organic materials such as rice and beans as well as sand and pea gravel to layer inside glass jars. It was wonderful to observe how excited the students were to create their own "sedimentary rock" exemplars. Do scroll down to take a look!
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| Magnetic rocks |
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| 1 of 2 geodes (we found these at Pumpkin Moon) |
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| Mr. Horn accepts the task of splitting open our geodes |
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| a look inside the 1st of the 2 geodes... |
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| ...and the 2nd geode. While neither contained spectacular crystals, it was still a thrill to crack them open! |
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| Porter creating layers of "sedimentary rock" |
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| Hugo with his "sedimentary rock" exemplar |
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| Ben's exemplar |
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| Leila's exemplar |
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| Joseph's exemplar |
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| Hata explains the steps to create crystals |
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| Daysha stirring to dissolve the epsom salt |
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| Dexter pouring the dyed salt water solution over a sponge, where the crystals will grow |
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| Leila (left), Daysha (center), and Emerson |
The following day, Nina introduced a lesson about fossils. She presented images of various fossils and explained that fossils are formed when plants and animals are quickly buried in sand or mud, with additional sediment covering and compressing the remains over time. After a very long time, rock-like minerals replace the original minerals of the animal or plant, forming a fossil. Nina revealed that the word "fossil" derives from the Latin word "fossilis" which means "dug up". Most fossils are found in layers of sedimentary rock.
For the students' project, Nina sought to emphasize the process of
fossil creation. She asked the students to use several layers of tissue
paper over a plant or animal skeleton (made by twisting lengths of
masking tape and attaching them to paper) and to compress the layers
together with washes of diluted glue. The results are beautiful!
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| Nina with her nautilus fossil exemplar |
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| Nina demonstrating how to roll the masking tape to create the plant or animal skeleton |
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| Max and Daysha sketching the shapes of their fossils |
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| Hugo taping the t-rex shape onto paper |
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| Jessica cutting her first layer of tissue paper to cover the masking tape skeleton |
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| Daysha's final layer! |
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| Hugo's dad and Nina take a look at Hugo's fossil |
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| Hugo's completed T-Rex fossil! |
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| Dexter's completed fossil! |
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