Lesson Plan

Geology pt 2: Rock Sorting

Grade Level:: Upper Elementary: Third Grade through Fifth Grade
Subject:: Science
Lesson Duration:: 30 Minutes
Common Core Standards:: 4.L.4.c
State Standards:: 4-Ess1-1.
Identify evidence from patterns in rock formations and fossils in rock layers to support an explanation for changes in a landscape over time.
Thinking Skills:: Remembering: Recalling or recognizing information ideas, and principles. Understanding: Understand the main idea of material heard, viewed, or read. Interpret or summarize the ideas in own words.

Essential Question

What are the three basic types of rocks, and how do they differ in terms of composition and geologic origin?

Objective

Students will be able to identify the three basic types of rocks (Igneous, Sedimentary, Metamorphic) and sort samples of rocks into the three types.

Background

Teacher will need to know the three main types of rocks and how they are formed.
Teacher will need to have a collection of rocks for sorting
Teacher will need to be able to define geology (study of rocks and how they are formed)

Preparation

Variety of samples of all three types of rocks
Student rock collection from previous lesson assignment
White board, markers, photo samples of the three types of rocks, or a rock dichotomous key.

Materials

Lesson Hook/Preview

Youtube video will help students review their knowledge of the three types of rocks before sorting rocks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE3jR_RhxO4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKKTTi0zzNA

Procedure

Step One: Introduce lesson through learning the youtube song above to review the three types of rocks.

Step Two: Pre-assessment: Students will sort their rock collections (and teacher’s) into the three different categories based on the information they know.

Step Three: Go to http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/earth/rocksandminerals.html , and view photographs of various types of Sedimentary, Metamorphic, and Igneous rock samples.

Step Four: Post-assessment: Students will resort their rock collections and teacher will assess to see their correct sorting of the collections.

Vocabulary

Igneous Rocks: form when hot, liquid rock, or magma, cools. When this magma slowly cools underground, it forms intrusive igneous rock. Magma that quickly cools aboveground becomes extrusive igneous rock.

Sedimentary Rocks: result when various weathering processes break down other types of rocks into particles, or sediment, or when once-living organisms accumulate. With the help of time and external pressures, these sediments get compacted into sedimentary rock.

Metamorphic Rocks: are created through the metamorphosis, or change, of other types of rocks. This normally happens deep underground where heat, pressure, and chemical activity can actually alter the minerals inside rocks.

Geologists: scientists who study rocks and recognize three major groups of rocks.