As a way to pull together everything we’ve learned in this Rocks and Minerals chapter, students learned about Oil and Petroleum today. From how it is formed in nature to where it can be found and how it can be extracted from rocks, students worked in cooperative pairs to gain knowledge about this important nonrenewable resources from a 6-page resource file from an online database.
Students worked to structure some self-guided notes on the topic with the assistance of a generalized note-taking outline. Since we’ve completed so many guided notes as a large group already this year, an additional objective of today’s lesson was for students to begin to tackle the organizational structure of notes more independently. They were given a Generalized Notes Outline to get them started. These guided notes are due at the start of class on Monday. If students need to check out a copy of the “Oil and Petroleum” file, they were allowed to do so after school or just access the file online.
Homework: Complete “Oil & Petroleum” guided notes by Monday.
Today’s guided notes on Metamorphic Rocks was completed individually in class rather than as part of a lecture. These notes will be reviewed together in class early next week in preparation for a rock types quiz that has been moved to Tuesday (03/11).
Following the metamorphic rocks guided notes, students completed the Chapter 2 Review from the geology text book. This review is designed to bring together all of the information on the rock cycle and the three main rock types.
Homework: Review rock types and organize resources for next week’s quiz. Complete Chapter 2 Review by Monday.
Sedimentary rocks are those that are formed by the compaction and cementation of fragments of other rocks: sand, gravel, and other rock segments. In today’s class, students completed the Sedimentary Rocks Notes Guide in class as a means of understanding the formation, texture, and composition of sedimentary rocks. We then watched a brief (4-minute) video clip about the formation of the Grand Canyon - a huge area of sedimentary rocks.
Tomorrow we’ll tackle the final of the three rock types: Metamorphic rocks. We’ll also complete a quiz over the three rock types and their identifiable properties.
We had completed most of the Igneous Rock notes guide in class yesterday, but a few small details remained to be ironed out at the start of today’s class. This included the meaning of porphyritic: an igneous rock with two distinct crystal sizes. This type of rock forms from either several different cooling environments or multiple composition elements.
Students then reviewed the properties of igneous rocks before completing the igneous rock identification lab. This lab was a quick way to earn an easy 10 points. Any students who missed today’s lab is reminded that the lab must be made up before the end of this week to earn points.
After tackling the Rock Cycle last week, this week we will focus on the details of the formation, composition, and texture of each of the three rock types: Igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks.
Today’s focus is on the same rock type that Mt. Rushmore is carved out of: igneous rocks. We completed the Igneous Rocks Guided Notes in class. These are rocks that form from the cooling and solidification of liquefied rock: magma or lava. We first discussed the three important factors in analyzing the melting of a rock: temperature, pressure, and composition.
The remainder of today’s guided notes covered the textures (coarse and fine-grained) and composition (felsic and mafic) of igneous rocks. Tomorrow we’ll wrap up the igneous rock notes and tackle the igneous rock identification lab activity.
Class began with the conclusion of the Rock Cycle graphic organizer guided notes. This only took the first 15 minutes of class or so. We then discussed the significance of today’s date; February 29th: The leap day.
Since we had just closed the unit on Astronomy, and considering that the calendar’s “year” is dictated by the length of time it takes the Earth to travel around the sun, the discussion of how we end up with this extra day every four years was appropriate for this week.
Students worked solo or in pairs to complete three discussion questions related to an online article about the leap day. These written responses were due at the end of the hour.
Today we began a discussion of the rock cycle: the transition from one rock type to another. We started by discussing the formation of sedimentary rocks from sand. This portion of the rock cycle includes processes such as weathering and erosion. We will continue the rock cycle grpahic organizer in class tomorrow.
For a great view of weathering and erosion, we watched a 30-second video clip advertisement for the Motorola PEBL phone. The video clip features the time-lapse weathering and erosion of a meteorite morphing into a smooth, soft ‘pebble’. If you missed class, Watch the video again via Google Videos by clicking play below or clicking here and check out the great representation of weathering and erosion!
Watch for erosion (movement of rocks, gravel, and sediment) as well as weathering (the breaking down of rocks into smaller pieces) as you watch the clip.
Tomorrow: Quiz over mineral characteristics - study the guided notes!
Today, students worked in pairs on the Mineral Identification Lab. There was no post-lab write-up, only the identification of all 10 mineral samples for a 10-point score. Anyone who missed this lab must make it up before or after school this week. All lab work must be completed no later than Friday of this week.
Tomorrow we will segue from minerals into rocks with a discussion of the Rock Cycle.
The term used to describe a classification tool that allows a person to distinguish between many objects with different characteristics (like birds, flowers, minerals, etc…) is a dichotomous key. We started today’s class by defining the term “dichotomous” (separating into two contradictory groups) and then practiced constructing a dichotomous key by using an animal example.
The example we completed in class involved separating the following six animals: eagle, brown bear, ostrich, shark, polar bear, gold fish. All six animals begin in one large grouping and we must divide them into two groups based on their characteristics. Most classes chose to divide the animals into those that live mainly on land (eagle, ostrich, brown bear, polar bear) and those that live mainly in water (shark, goldfish). We then broke each of those groupings down into smaller groups based on some other characteristic. For instance, the land animals can be further divided into those that have fur and those with feathers. The water animals can be separated by color. The end result is a concept map (graphical representation) of an identification key that can then be used to identify each individual object based on its characteristics.
The lab that was completed in class consisted of constructing a dichotomous key to identify ten different types of clips: butterfly clips, paper clips, binder clips, brass fasteners, etc… The lab was due at the end of class and worth 15 points.
Next we will aim to identify 10 mineral samples by using a large dichotomous key that characterizes minerals based on those properties we defined earlier in the week: breakage, hardness, color, streak, transparency, density, etc…
Homework: Study for the mineral characteristics quiz on Thursday.
In order to identify minerals, we need a solid understanding of the characteristics that differentiate one mineral from another. Friday we started a two-day section on mineral characteristics by defining and detailing the first four (of eight) mineral characteristics and today we finished the guided notes by detailing the remaining characteristics: Hardness, transparency, density, and other special properties.
Tomorrow we will construct a classification tool as a preview for the Wednesday mineral identification lab.
As a way to pull together everything we’ve learned in this Rocks and Minerals chapter, students learned about Oil and Petroleum today. From how it is formed in nature to where it can be found and how it can be extracted from rocks, students worked in cooperative pairs to gain knowledge about this important nonrenewable resources from a 6-page resource file from an online database.
Sedimentary rocks are those that are formed by the compaction and cementation of fragments of other rocks: sand, gravel, and other rock segments. In today’s class, students completed the Sedimentary Rocks Notes Guide in class as a means of understanding the formation, texture, and composition of sedimentary rocks. We then watched a brief (4-minute) video clip about the formation of the Grand Canyon - a huge area of sedimentary rocks.
After tackling the Rock Cycle last week, this week we will focus on the details of the formation, composition, and texture of each of the three rock types: Igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks.