Part 1: Introduction
The teacher will provide the students will the basic understanding of rocks and minerals.
Materials:
- Internet accessible device with projector for teacher
- Internet accessible devices for students (optional)
- Access to UDLibSearch or just the Britannica School Elementary Database (and Middle if necessary for student differentiation)
- Copy of "Introduction to rocks and minerals questions" for each student
Duration:
- Part 1 should take approximately 90 - 120 minutes (about 2 days)
Activities:
1. Using UDLibSearch the teacher will access Britannica School Elementary Database. First the teacher will read with the class the article "Geology" to introduce the Earth Science topic that the new unit will be covering. It also introduces terms, like geologist.
- Should the teacher decide to have the students read the article on their own, it is available in either an 850 or 1380 lexile level, and can also be read aloud, which allows for accessibility.
2. In order to help students understand the types of rocks and how they are forms, the teacher should read the article "Rock" next.
- Again, to assist with accessibility, the article is available in either an 810 or 940 lexile level, and can also be read aloud.
3. The teacher should now show the "Geology: Rock Cycle" video. This reinforces the "Rock" article and allows students who have different learning styles a different way to understand how rocks are formed, as well as a visual representation of the different types of rocks to assist when they will have to identify different types of rocks.
4. The teacher now shows the "mineral" video, which starts by giving students a good visual of how rocks are formed by different minerals coming together. This will introduce what is a mineral and why they are studied along rocks.
5. The teacher will now learn about the different properties of minerals by reading the article "Mineral". This will allow the students to gain an understanding of the different types of experiments they can perform on minerals in order to identify an unknown mineral.
- Again, to assist with accessibility, the article is available in either an 890 or 1030 lexile level, and can also be read aloud.
6. Finally, the teacher will show a second "mineral" video, which gives a more in-depth visual for the students on how to perform different types of experiments on minerals in order to identify an unknown mineral by identifying its properties.
7. After all of the articles and videos are shared, students should individually work on the "Introduction to rocks and minerals questions" worksheet. This will help guide the students with their research for part 2.
Assessment:
- Teacher can use the student responses to the "Introduction to rocks and minerals questions" worksheet as a formative assessment.
- The summative assessment will be completed in part 3 with the student-created presentation.
Home extension (optional):
- At home families can look for materials outside and the students can try to identify whether it is a rock or mineral (and even try to go one step further to try to identify the type of rock or mineral) based on the information learned from the articles and videos. Students can then show their families the resources on Britannica and use evidence from the articles/videos to provide support for their thing of why they identified their rock/mineral in the way that they did.