Classifying and Food

I had two successful lessons last week that I wanted to share. The first was just a quick activity as part of a lesson. In Earth Science we've been doing rocks and minerals. This is a unit I always struggle with engagment. I know geologists who can make rocks interesting. But in the past whenever I get to this unit I find myself searching the internet for hours trying to find something that will get the students interest. I have rock samples and I do labs to indentify them but it just seems to fall flat. For minerals I did a quick activity to review the 4 characteristics of all minerals. I printed out pictures of salt, a rock, ice, sugar, and coal. I made sure to print pictures of the item in different forms. Then I gave each group the pictures and made them draw a chart in chalk on their tables. The chart listed the five items and then the four characteristics of minerals. Inorganic, definite chemical composition, crystals or repeating patterns, and natural. The students had to write yes or no in each box for each characteristic. Then they figured out which of the two items were minerals. Usually my students struggle with visualizing these characteristics. But with this they were able to classify each as a mineral or not. I gave them hints to help them. For example I printed a picture of a sugar cube and also a picture of sugar cane. The students were able to figure out that sugar is not inorganic because they know plants are living. Also writing on the desks with chalk is always fun and engaging! For my other successful lesson I had the students make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to model a rock going from sedimentary to layered rock to metamorphic. If a student has alergies you can have them just use jelly. The students each get a piece of white and a piece of wheat bread. They put peanut butter and jelly on it and then candy (minerals), gummy fish and worms (fossils), and marshmallow (binding agent). This is their sedimentary rock. Then a group of students stack their sandwich and wrap it in plastic wrap. This is layered rock. They then sit on it or apply a lot of pressure and then unwrap it and put it in the microwave for 5 minutes. Heat and pressure to make a metamorphic rock. They loved it. And I gurantee none of them will forget how metamorphic rocks form! I also showed them real rock samples to bring it back to the real thing. Overall it was a fun and successful week. And they were engaged in rocks!