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How would you infuse other content areas into learning about Rocks and Minerals?

Teachers can incorporate the subject of rocks and minerals in a variety of curricular areas. For example, students can be exposed to the social science of rocks through studing Geography and the topical landforms that are indigenous to their living environment. Then teachers can plan to have students take an outdoor exploration and collect rock and minerals to later sort, classify, and graph which ties into math concepts. Last, but certainly not the least or the final thing that can be done, is guided reading groups in which students can be exposed to content leveled readers and respond to comprehension questions.

Alicia I am not sure what grade level you are teaching. There are collections of resources on Rock" for elementary, middle and high school http://learningcenter.nsta.org/my_learning_center/my_library.aspx?cid=V7xfQscVt64_E http://learningcenter.nsta.org/my_learning_center/my_library.aspx?cid=InA3HF2TFmA_E http://learningcenter.nsta.org/my_learning_center/my_library.aspx?cid=iaxYZJzf4RI_E The elementary collection includes "Teaching about Rocks with trade books" Perhaps this would offer connections to literacy. At higher grades there may be options for connecting to math

[size=100]In second grade one of our social studies units focuses on the 5 regions and the main rivers of Georgia. We continually revisit the importance of the local soil of a region and how it impacts the types of fruits and vegetables grown in that region. A more in depth exploration of the soil, the rocks , and the minerals found in those regions would enrich the unit. Writing is always a great way to make a connection. The picture book Everybody Needs a Rock by Byrd Baylor is a must! It would be a great way to begin a unit on rocks & minerals. [/size]

Rocks and Minerals can be incorporated across the curriculum by infusing the lessons with resources that tie to all subject area. For instance, in Lange Arts, students can use graphic organizers such as venn-diagrams, or comparison-contrast charts to tell how rocks and minerals are alike and different. In math, students can measure properties such as length, width, mass and volume (using standard and non-standard units of measurement). Students can incorporate writing by recording observations, forming questions, creating brochures, or developing a story about their "pet rock." In reading students can use field guides, textbooks, and supplemental resources to research rocks and minerals.

I can incorporate rocks and minerals into my lessons in many ways. I have some students that are still struggling with simple addition and subtraction. Those students can use the rocks as manipulatives. (I have 18 rocks in my collection. Mrs. Walker has 11 rocks. Who has more? How many more?) The students that have mastered the addition and subtraction can set the rocks in arrays to do begining multiplication. While students are working, I can tell some information about the rocks (or minerals) that they are using. We can also measure them. How tall, how wide, etc. In Social Studies, we can incorpoate them into keeping our environment clean. I have some guides that we can use. This can bring in another genre for reading. We can write tall tales. For example: The "character" could throw "a mineral" 100 miles. Students would use the character and the mineral's names for example.

How would you infuse other content areas into learning about Rocks and Minerals? Math: Kdg-1 Students could be asked to estimate or count a set of rocks. They also can sort rocks based on simple attributes such as big vs. small. Upper grade students would focus more on classifying, describing and arranging rocks using comparative attributes such as the length, size, area, weight, and volume of the rocks. These students can also use a variety of measuring insruments to gather data. Math/Art: Students can construct graphs(pictogrphs) based on collected data. Students can sketch their observations or findings. Reading/ELA: Students could be provided with various written materials that focus on the subject of Rocks and Minerals. Students can use graphic organizers to help develop their thought process as well as data. Written reflections and note- taking are important components of the scientific process. S.S.: Students can research what local, state, and national examples of rock or mineral landmarks exists. Students can describe how their physical environment (rock and minerals) helps shape the community that they live in.

I teach kindergarten and our focus would be what earth is made of. We would use our senses to observe and group rocks by physical attributes such as large/small, smooth/rough. etc. In math we would chart and graph rocks according to their physical attributes (texture, color, size). We could also use rocks as counters to count various items. Rocks can also be used as non-standard tools for measuring different items. In social studies we can study local or state maps to find the location of various rocks and minerals. Students like trying to find the names of places on the maps. In ELA we could make a big book that tells how rocks and minerals are used and the various types found in the earth. In music we could listen to songs about Earth and draw pictures to illustrate the lyrics (including rocks and minerals). Vicki Carmichael

It is easy for a teacher to teach across the curriculum with any topic. I would infuse rocks and minerals into English Language Arts, Math and Social Studies. For example in ELA, I would focus on the standards related to compare and contrast, classifying and comprehension. I would use bubble map or double bubble map (one of the thinking map) to compare and contrast different rocks and minerals. I would also use read material on the topic of rocks and mineral to build background or comprehension. In Math, I would focus on the standards related to measurement. I would measure the different rocks. In the K-1, you can allow the students to sort the rock by different size, shape, and color. In Social Studies, I would focus on the standard that[/size] is related to landforms.

Rocks and Minerals are an easy subject to teach since the materials are outside your front door. Here in Hawaii, the students are use to seeing volcanic rocks so that is where I start teaching. To incorporate into other subjects, in Math, we have weighed volcanic rocks against sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. Kids are always fascinated by rocks!

I have recently got transferred to middle school from high school and have to teach earth science for 8th graders. I do not have very strong content background and never taught in this subject. I came across information and NSTA PD class since I have been wondering what would get middle school students arose their curiosity and get them interested in the subject. It has been one of my challenge that how I can integrate earth science contents with any other subjects and give students relevancy of their learning earth science. It is very interesting to read this post as I found many ideas how to infuse the contents of rocks and minerals through various activities such as compare and contrast in language art, statistics of rock sample collections in math, landforms in geography and so on. As high content relevancy, I have got an hint through reading this forum that exploration of local geology would enrich the contents with relevancy as the students in Hawaii are familiar with volcanoes and lava. Thank you for those who contributed to this post. I had an eye-opening moment while reading this forum.

You could infuse language arts and reading skills into a rocks & minerals lesson using the book 'Rocks in His Head' by Carol Otis Hurst. Delightful book. Lessons for young and old alike. Dorothy

Rocks and minerals could be incorporated into many different areas. You could learn the layers of the earth song sung to the popular "black and yellow" tune, or "create" your own crystals to understanding the different temperatures of developing crystal sizes, or you could measure the mass and density of rocks to discuss their composition as a measuring exercise for math, and you can describe their physical properties to create art. "What feels similar to pumice?" What looks like hematite?" you could even write a descriptive prose about a rock or mineral.

This message is for Tomonori... I have just recently finished completing the Rocks SciPack for middle school. I am personally an elementary school teacher, but enjoyed building my knowledge in what I have to teach through this SciPack. There is tons of information that may help you. What is also wonderful is the Rocks SciGuide which will help with creating your lessons. The SciGuide also gives you website links that are also very helpful to construct your lesson plans. These are great places to start. NSTA has an abundance of rich material.

You can do a lot to integrate math into rocks and minerals. One idea to fuse science and math together is to have students study the properties of various rocks. For example sedimentary rocks tend to be much more porous than metamorphic or igneous rocks because they have been compacted together and have many air pockets within them. Students can troubleshoot the volume of the rockets based on water displacement. Then they can estimate the percent volume of the rock that air occupies versus actual sediment. By the way I saw a lot of great ideas posted, and I will try to use them too when we do our next IDU.

Thanks for your responses to my post. I gained a lot of doable ideas through reading your postings. my primary concern is not just provide my students the contents directly, but high relevancy to their everyday life and integration with other subject areas. I have tried teh lesson integrated with math using statistics. The students collected rock samples in the comunity, classified by rock categories and worked on statistics. I wonder this lesson plan could be expandable. I would like to add any extesion lesson if any.

Dorothy, I want to thank you for introducing me to the book, "Rocks in his Head." I have never heard of this book before but I am always collecting quality children's literature to help teach concepts. I put it in my amazon cart and am sure I will find it useful as I teach geology.

Hi Shawana -

Rocks in His Head is a wonderful story, based upon a true story. I think you and your students will enjoy it.

I'm thinking about having my high school Geology students read it to a class of elementary school students. Great multi-age teaching and learning activity.

Dorothy

Dorothy- Ah...too bad your highschoolers couldn't read it to my third graders! But great idea!

A few books I use for teaching geology are: The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth by Joanna Cole. How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the Earth by Faith McNulty, It could still be a rock by Allan Fowler, and Adventures with Rocks and Minerals Book 1: Geology Experiments for Young People, by Lloyd Barrow. I've also attached three articles. The first, 'They Dig It!', integrates archaeology and paleontology using language arts, social studies, math, and geology. In 'Art of Geology', students create sand art to learn about geology. Finally, in 'Layer-Cake Earth', students core through layer cake to learn about the different layers of the Earth. These are all fantastic activities that help you teach geology concepts while integrating with other curriculum areas.

Maureen

Attachments

They Dig It! (Journal Article)

Layer-Cake Earth (Journal Article)

The Art of Geology (Journal Article)

I loved How to Dig a Hole . . . That is a great book for teaching the layers of the earth. This has been fun to read all the ideas. I always keep a rock collection in my classroom. It tends to get bigger and smaller as students add rocks (or sometimes take them though I discourage that) I don't keep any precious rocks in there but I'm continually collecting rocks when I go up the the north Shore of lake Superior (I live in Mpls, MN) I keep several rock guides out with the collection as well as posters to classify the rocks. The kids love this little learning station. And learn alot about rocks on their own just by reading and observing.

There are also some great projects in Geology (Grades 5-9) Milliken(pub) ISBN 1-55863-091-0 Geography for Fun Projects . . . by Pam Robson by Copper Beach Books ISBN 0-7613-2279-5

POETRY ROCKS!!! Being April is National Poetry Month, I have my students create 4 different types of poems about rocks. After lecture and lab experiences dealing with rocks, we go to the computer lab to create poems reinforcing the concepts learned. Students are given the freedom to pick and choose which rock types or specific rocks they will write about. Check out my handout to students. I presented this at our HASTI Share-A-Thon at the NSTA conference in Indianapolis in March 2012. Our 'ROCKIN' POETRY" is printed out on colorful paper and 'published around school for others to share.

Attachments

Poetry_Rocks!_Poem_Activity-_Ginger_Shirley.pdf (0.15 Mb)

Wow! that poetry idea sounds great.

Hi Tina, Thank you for responding to my post long ago for my lesson idea. Your lesson is high relevancy in the student everyday life experience using reachable resources around us and highly emphasized in community involvement using reliable organization and people as resources. We will look into the possibility of how we can conduct the research of rocks in the living community areas at the student level with an aid of community resources. Let's keep in touch. Thank you by Tina Harris, Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:50 PM Tomonori > I don't know where you live so I don't know if this is a possibility for you. One year (working with a local university) my students collected rocks from local streams and we also analyzed them as to what they were made of (mostly just igneous/sedimentary/metamorphic unless we could make a clearer distinction but they were weathered so it was not always possible). We sent the data to the university and they used the information to determine where the glacier from the last ice age came from (I am in Indiana, and they had a number of different teachers doing this activity all over the state). It turned out there were actually 2 different lobes that passed through the state and they used the data to pinpoint the origin in Canada for the majority of the rocks we found. It was very exciting for my students to help with a college study. Perhaps you could find someone at a local university, online, or the local geological survey that might work with your students about the source rocks in your area.

Hi Kelly, It was a nice idea to take the Rocks SciPack. I recently finished completing it and had a chance to organize the content knowledge. Especially, I had many good idea to present the contents through hands-on activities. The impacts that I had through learning the Rock SciPack is importance of learning about the rock characteristics and cycle as we are able to see already extincted facts in the remote past through the examining the trace clues left in the rocks, which have been transformed through the rock cycle in various conditions other than the facts of rocks. Thank you for your recommendation of this SciPack to me. by Kelly Asato, Sat Feb 11, 2012 7:03 PM This message is for Tomonori... I have just recently finished completing the Rocks SciPack for middle school. I am personally an elementary school teacher, but enjoyed building my knowledge in what I have to teach through this SciPack. There is tons of information that may help you. What is also wonderful is the Rocks SciGuide which will help with creating your lessons. The SciGuide also gives you website links that are also very helpful to construct your lesson plans. These are great places to start. NSTA has an abundance of rich material.

Hi Tomonori,
I am so glad you decided to go through the Rocks SciPack. It is an excellent resource for boning up on the content. Did you notice the pedagogical implications section, too? It has lots of helps for what misconceptions to watch for that students might be bringing to class. Also, I wasn't sure if you were familiar with the SciGuides that go with the SciPacks. There is one on Rocks. It contains lesson plans, interactive websites and annimations that could be used with middle school students. It is an excellent resource and compliments the Rocks SciPack. Hope your year is going well.
Carolyn