A comprehensive course that teaches the big ideas behind rocks, minerals, and the science of geology. Students burn coal, fluoresce minerals, chemically react rocks, streak powders, scratch glass, and play with atomic bonds as they learn how to be a real field geologist.

Step 1. Click Here to download your copy of the Ultimate Science Curriculum Earth Science 1 Student Guidebook.

Step 2. Watch the videos that go with it below.

Introduction

Greetings and welcome to the study of Earth Science. This unit was created by a mechanical engineer, university instructor, airplane pilot, astronomer, robot-builder and real rocket scientist … me! I have the happy opportunity to teach you everything I know about electricity over the next set of lessons. I promise to give you my best stuff so you can take it and run with it … or fly!

This curriculum course has been prepared to be completed over several weeks, completing 1-2 lessons per week. You will find that there are 28 lessons outlined to take you from an introduction of geology on through several advanced projects which are complex enough to win a prize at the science fair. If you complete this course and send your kids off, you’ll find their high school teachers entirely blown away by their mastery of the subject.

To get the most out of these labs, there are really only a couple of things to keep in mind. Since we are all here to have fun and learn something new, this shouldn’t be too hard. With each lesson, you’ll find:

Overview
What to Learn
Materials
Experiments & Worksheets
Exercises

In addition to the lessons, we have also prepared the following items you’ll find useful:

Scientific Method Guide
Master Materials and Equipment List
Lab Safety Sheet
Written Quiz (with Answer Key)
Lab Practical Test

One of the best things you can do as the student is to cultivate your curiosity about things. This unit on Earth Science is chock full of demonstrations and experiments for two big reasons. First, they’re fun. But more importantly, the reason we do experiments in science is to hone your observational skills. Science experiments really speak for themselves much better than I can ever put into words or show you on a video. And I’m going to hit you with a lot of these science demonstrations and experiments to help you develop your observing techniques.

Scientists not only learn to observe what’s going on in the experiment, but they also learn how to observe what their experiment is telling them, which is found by looking at your data. It’s not enough to invent some new kind of experiment if you don’t know how it will perform when the conditions change a bit, like on Mars. We’re going to learn how to predict what we think will happen, design experiments that will test this idea, and look over the results we got to figure out where to go from there. Science is a process, it’s a way of thinking, and we’re going to get plenty of practice at it.

Good luck with this Earth Science unit!

Geology: Rocks and Minerals

Everything is matter. Well, except for energy, but that’s everything else. Everything you can touch and feel is matter. It is made up of solid (kind of) atoms that combine and form in different ways to create light poles, swimming pools, poodles, Jell-O and even the smell coming from your pizza.

All matter is made of atoms. Shoes, air, watermelons, milk, wombats, you, everything is made of atoms. Hundreds and billions and zillions of atoms make up everything. When you fly your kite, it’s atoms moving against the kite that keep it in the air. When you float in a boat, it’s atoms under your boat holding it up.

My definition of an atom is: the smallest part of stable matter. There are things smaller than an atom, but they are unstable and can’t be around for long on their own. Atoms are very stable and can be around for long periods of time. Atoms rarely hang out on their own, though. They are outgoing and usually love to get together in groups. These groups of atoms are called molecules. A molecule can be made of anywhere from two atoms to millions of atoms. Together these atoms make absolutely everything, including the minerals, crystals, and rocks we’re about to study.

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Lesson #1: Color Streak

Overview: This lesson will introduce you to the shiny world of minerals and crystals by learning how to identify rocks by both the color that you see, and the color that gets left behind.

What to Learn: You will be able to identify minerals by their colors and streaks, and be able to tell a sample of real gold from the fake look-alike called pyrite.

Materials

1 handheld magnifying lens
Unglazed porcelain tile
Rock samples (the ones in the video are: graphite, pyrite, talc, iron, and jasper)

Lesson #2: Mohs’ Hardness

Overview: Today you’ll learn how to test the mineral hardness, which is really a test of the strength of the bonds that hold the atoms together inside the mineral sample. This scale was first developed by Friedrich Mohs in 1812, and still is in use today.

What to Learn: By the end of this lab, you will be able to line up rocks according to how hard they are by using a specific scale. The scale goes from 1 to 10, with 10 being the hardest minerals.

Materials

Steel nail
Penny
Small plate of glass (optional)
Rock samples (minerals in the video: talc, selenite, calcite, fluorite, apatite, feldspar, quartz)

Lesson #3: Cleavage & Fracture

Overview: Geologists use a number of tests to identify minerals. One of their best friends in these tests is a trusty hammer, used to smash a sample to bits. The way a mineral breaks reveals important details about it that we might not be able to notice otherwise.

What to Learn: Today, you’ll learn what to look for in a broken mineral. There are different names for the types of breaks that a mineral can experience. You’ll need to ask a few important questions during your investigation, like, “What is the difference between mineral cleavage and fracture?”

Materials

Mineral samples
Hand lens
Good lighting

Lesson #4: Acid Test

Overview: Geologists use a number of tests to identify minerals, one of which is the acid test. Regular old vinegar, also known as dilute acetic acid, is used to test for the presence of calcium carbonate, which will help you tell the difference between specimens that look similar, but really aren’t, like marble and quartz.

What to Learn: Your goal is to identify samples according to their reactivity with acid. Minerals that react are called chemical rocks, and minerals that don’t are called clastic rocks. Some chemical rocks contain carbonate minerals, like limestone, dolomite, and marble which react with the acid.

Materials

Acetic acid (plain distilled white vinegar) in a dropper bottle or in a small cup with a medicine dropper
Pie tin
Paper towels
Steel nail
Optional: handheld magnifier
Rock samples (in the video: bituminous coal, limestone, conglomerate, coquina, shale, siltstone, sandstone, and dolomite)

Lesson #5: Sedimentary Rocks

Overview: Sedimentary rocks are broken into three different types: organic, chemical, and clastic. The Acid Test determines which rocks are clastic because they don’t react with the acid. Here’s another test to further determine the different kinds of clastic rocks by using the hardness scale.

What to Learn: Clastic rocks come in very different shapes and sizes, but they all have a few characteristics in common. A clast is a grain of sand, gravel, pebble, etc that makes up a rock. Clastic rocks look like they are made up of fragments of other rocks.

Materials

Small piece of plate glass
Magnifying lens
Vinegar
Paper towel
Shallow dish
Rock samples (in the video: bituminous coal, sandstone, siltstone, shale)

Lesson #6: Burning Coal

Overview: The soft coal called “bituminous coal” contains 15-20% volatile matter, making it a cheap, easy source of energy. Coal goes through three stages when burned: coal gas, coal tar, and coking.

What to Learn: Bituminous coal (also called black coal) is a soft, black organic sedimentary rock that contains 85% carbon. It’s a lower grade than anthracite coal, which contains 93% carbon. Bituminous coal can either be dull or shiny, whereas anthracite is hard and shiny. Lignite, a lower grade than bituminous, is a crumbly, black type of coal that only contains 72% carbon.

Materials

Votive candle
Paperclip
Hammer (if your piece of coal is large)
Pliers (to bend paperclip)
Lighter with adult help
Cup of water
Rock samples (in the video: bituminous coal, anthracite coal)

Lesson #7: Tenacity

Overview: How well does a mineral or rock hold itself together? If you’ve ever dropped a light bulb on the ground, you know it’s easy to break. But why doesn’t a water bottle break as easily? The light bulb is more brittle than the water bottle. Minerals are the same way… some are more brittle than others, and it’s all measureable.

What to Learn: Tenacity is a measure of how resistive a mineral is to breaking, bending, or being crushed. When you exceed that limit, fracture is how the mineral creaks once the tenacity (or tenacious) limit has been exceeded.

Materials

Rock samples (in the video: copper, mica, selenite, sulfur)

Lesson #8: Density

Overview: Density is a measure of how heavy an object is for its size. Meteorites have a larger density than styrofoam, for example. You’d need a huge piece of foam to even begin to come close to weighing the same amount as a small meteorite.

What to Learn: Density can be found by weighing an object and dividing by the volume of the object, and for geologists, is the same thing as specific gravity. Water has a density of 1, which means that 1 gram of water takes up 1 cubic centimeter of space. Specific gravity is a number you get when you divide the density of an object by the density of water, which happens to be 1 gram/cm³.

Materials

Measuring cup that has graduation marks for milliliters (mL)
Scale that measures in grams
Rock samples (in the video: quartz, meteorite, pumice)
Calculator

Lesson #9: Luster

Overview: The sparkle, shine, sheen, or lack thereof is what geologists call luster. Luster describes how a mineral appears to reflect light, and this tells how brilliant or dull the surface of the mineral is.

What to Learn: Luster is the way a mineral reflects light, and it depends on the surface reflectivity.

Materials

Sunlight
Rock samples (in the video: pyrite, fluorite, and serpentine)

Lesson #10: Fluorescence

Overview: Fluorescence is the effect that theaters use to get objects in a dark area to glow in the visible spectrum. Some minerals fluoresce because they contain activators which respond to UV light by giving off a visible glowing light.

What to Learn: Fluorescent minerals emit light when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light, usually in a completely different color than when exposed to white light. UV is invisible to the human eye, and is the wavelength of light that is responsible for sunburns.

Materials

Longwave UV light
Sunlight
Rock samples (The four samples at the end of the video are: top left is opalite, top right is calcite, bottom left is norbergite, bottom right is calcite & willemite.)

If you want to get the rock samples used in the video, there’s a kit from www.honetrainingtools.com called “Fluorescent Mineral Kit” (KT-FLUORKT) and (KT-FLRLONG). Do not purchase the shortwave mineral kit as it is not safe for children (or adults without proper handling and protection).

Lesson #11: Magnetism

Overview: Minerals that react when you place them in a magnetic field have magnetic properties. How attracted they are to the magnet depends on the temperature and the properties of the mineral itself.

What to Learn: A magnetic field is the area around a magnet or an electrical current that attracts or repels objects that are placed in the field. The closer the object is to the magnet, the more powerfully it’s going to experience the magnetic effect. Nearly all minerals that are magnetic have iron as a component.

Materials

Magnet
Rock samples (samples in the video that stuck to the magnet are lodestone [which is the magnetic form of magnetite] and meteorites)

Lesson #12: Making Limestone

Overview: Limestone is a sedimentary rock that is mostly calcium carbonate (CaCO₃). In our experiment today, we are doing a simple chemistry experiment that produces calcium carbonate as the product.

What to Learn: Out of all the kinds of sedimentary rocks, limestone makes up 10% by volume. People have used limestone in architecture like the Great Pyramids, castles in Europe, and in early 20^th century buildings like banks and train stations. Today we use it as white filler in toothpaste, to build roads, make tiles, in cosmetics, and added to breads and cereal as a cheap source of calcium.

Materials

Goggles
Distilled white vinegar (you only need a drop, so use a medicine dropper)
Funnel
Straw
2 water bottles
2 paper napkins
Calcium hydroxide (also known as “lime”) This chemical is irritating to skin and eyes, so use your goggles and gloves when handling since it’s a dust. This chemical is toxic and should only be handled by an adult. Find safety information under MSDS Calcium Hydroxide.

DO NOT ALLOW CHILDREN TO DO THIS EXPERIMENT. Limewater is TOXIC. This experiment is for demonstration purposes only by an adult.

STUDENTS: You can watch the video and complete the data table and exercises if you’re not able to have an adult do this for you.

Lesson #13: Making Sandstone

Overview: When you look at a piece of sandstone under a magnifier, you’ll notice tiny, sand-sized grains that look like they’re glued together. We’re not only going to make our own version of sandstone, but we’ll even press an object into it to make a fossil impression.

What to Learn: Sandstone is a common sedimentary rock that’s composed of quartz crystals cemented together by silica, calcium carbonate, clay or iron oxide. Fossils are often found in sandstone.

Materials

2 paper cups
Water
Popsicle stick
Sand
Plaster of Paris
Shell (something to make a fossil impression of)
Scissors

Lesson #14: Popcorn Rock

Overview: Popcorn rocks, or flowering rocks, are dolomite samples that grow aragonite crystals when you place them in distilled white vinegar. The crystals will grow overnight, and flourish in about a week.

What to Learn: Popcorn rocks are different than regular dolomite samples because they have a lot more magnesium inside. This was first discovered by a geology professor in the 1980s who was dissolving the limestone around fossils he was studying in his rock samples. When he placed samples of this type in the acid to dissolve, it didn’t dissolve but instead grew new crystals!

Materials

Distilled white vinegar (acetic acid)
“Flowering rock” dolomite samples
Disposable cup or glass jar
Penny
Nail
Streak plate
Water in a graduated container
Scale that measures in grams
Longwave UV light source
Sunlight

Lesson #15: Rockhound Hunt

Overview: This is the first of three “field trip” type of labs where students are given a pile of unlabeled rocks, and asked to identify them using the test techniques we’ve covered. The samples for this first set are easy to do since the samples are larger, and the instructional video walks you through every sample and how to tell which is which.

What to Learn: We’ve covered sedimentary rocks in the previous lessons (the rocks used in those lessons are also found in the set required for this lab), so now is your chance to identify igneous and metamorphic rocks in your set by looking at color, streak, hardness, luster, chemical reactivity, and more! Let’s put your new skills to the test. It’s best to work right alongside the video as you go.

Materials

“Know Your Rocks” (also called “Learn Your Rocks”) set by Geoscience Industries, which includes the following samples: basalt, granite, pumice, rhyolite, diorite, gabbro, andesite, obsidian, bituminous coal, limestone, comglomerate, coquina, shale, siltstone, sandstone, dolomite, anthracite coal, soapstone, marble, amphibolites, quartzite, slate, gneiss, and schist.
Penny
Nail
Streak plate
Water in a graduated container
Scale that measures in grams
Longwave UV light source
Sunlight

Lesson #16: Foam Pumice

Overview: Pumice is a light-colored (usually white, cream, or gray) porous volcanic rock that floats in water, at least at first. Scoria is another volcanic rock, but it’s darker, denser, has thicker walls, and sinks in water. Today you’ll be making your own pumice using a chemical reaction.

What to Learn: Today we’re making polyurethane foam, which looks a lot like pumice in that it’s lightweight, porous, and cream colored. Polyurethane is a polymer that is used to make a variety of products, including seat cushions, insulation panels, seals and gaskets, roller coaster wheels, escalator rollers, carpet underlay, and wheels for skateboards.

Materials

Craft stick
2 disposable plastic cups (MUST be disposable)
Tart pan
Polyurethane A
Polyurethane B
Sample of pumice for observation

Lesson #17: Test Tube Cannon

Overview: Today you get to combine a solid and a liquid substance to generate a gas that will pop the stopper off your test tube. The better you make your solution, the further the stopper will go.

What to Learn: You’ll learn about the key ingredient in an explosive eruption like the one we’re simulating in lab today.

Materials

rubber stopper
test tube
toilet paper
goggles
distilled white vinegar
baking soda powder
measuring tape
scale that weighs in grams
ruler

Lesson #18: Making Fossils

Overview: Most fossils can be found in the most common type of rock on earth: sedimentary rock. Fossils are usually found in shale, sandstone, and limestone and are actually more common than most people think. Although some sedimentary rocks will have absolutely no fossils whatsoever, sometimes you’ll find nothing but fossils in a certain area of limestone. Once in a while, you’ll find fossils embedded in amber.

What to Learn: Today you get to make your own glop of earth that holds an embedded fossil. If you close the dough over the top of the fossil, you can hammer it apart after it’s had two days to dry.

Materials

½ cup dirt
½ cup flour
½ water
½ cup salt
shallow pan
oil
shell or other object to make a fossil impression of

Lesson #19: Geology Field Trip

Overview: This experiment really pulls together everything we’ve been learning about rocks and minerals so far. Students will have 30 rocks, minerals, fossils and gemstones to sort and identify using the tests and techniques we’ve covered.

What to Learn: Field trip time! Today you get to sift through sand and excavate your rock samples right on your own desk. This set of rocks is a little more difficult than the first field trip to work through, because there are more of them and the samples are smaller, so take your time and follow the video instructions carefully.

Materials

“Geology Field Trip” rock samples: dinosaur bone, horn coral, gastropod, brachiopod, trilobite, oyster, shark’s tooth, petrified wood, crinoid stem, pyrite, magnetite, gypsum, hematite, sulfur, pumice, selenite, limonite, quartz, mica, fluorite, calcite, feldspar, coal, red sandstone, conglomerate, obsidian, scoria, mica schist, quartzite, shale, gneiss, turquenite, rock crystal, agate, and amethyst.
Penny
Nail
Streak plate
Glass plate
Water in a graduated container
Sunlight
Pencil and paper
Handheld magnifier

Lesson #20: Rock Workshop

Overview: This is the third of three geology field trips that we’re going to do. Make sure you’ve completed the first two field trips and all the mineral test experiments before attempting this one. Students will have 40 small rock samples to identify using the tests and techniques we’ve covered.

What to Learn: Today you get to sort and identify as many rocks as you can as you test for streak, hardness, fluorescence, color, magnetism, chemical reactions, and more with this unique set of rocks. You may have to do a little research on the ones that are not yet familiar to you!

Materials

“Washington Student Rock Pack” (see list below for samples that are included)
Penny
Nail
Streak plate
Water in a graduated container
Scale that measures in grams
Longwave UV light source

Lesson #21: Laundry Soap Crystals

Overview: Crystals are formed when atoms line up in patterns and solidify. There are crystals everywhere — in the form of salt, sugar, sand, diamonds, quartz, and many more!

What to Learn: To make crystals, you need to make a very special kind of solution called a supersaturated solid solution. Here’s what that means: If you add salt by the spoonful to a cup of water, you’ll reach a point where the salt doesn’t disappear (dissolve) anymore and forms a lump at the bottom of the glass. The point at which it begins to form a lump is just past the point of saturation. If you heat up the saltwater, the lump disappears. You can now add more and more salt, until it can’t take any more (you’ll see another lump starting to form at the bottom). This is now a supersaturated solid solution. Mix in a bit of water to make the lump disappear. Your solution is ready for making crystals.

Materials

pipe cleaners (or string or skewer)
cleaned-out pickle, jam, or mayo jar
water
borax (AKA sodium tetraborate)
adult help, stove, pan, and stirring spoon

Lesson #22: Penny Crystal Structure

Overview: Crystals are defined by their set, repeating patterns. Scientists have names for the types of patterns a mineral’s crystals have, and they are used to classify them accordingly.

What to Learn: The way minerals break has to do with their crystal structure.

Materials

50 pennies
ruler

Lesson #23: Rock Candy Crystals

Overview: We can see crystals when we look around in all kinds of places: in the kitchen, in the driveway, and in jewelry, to name a few. Today, we’ll explore the nature of crystals and the ways that they can form using some minerals dissolved in solution.

What to Learn: In this experiment, we will see crystals form from a liquid solution that has become past the point of saturation by minerals. This mixture, called a supersaturated solution, will form into a crystal when it finds a surface to cling onto, such as a stick or string submerged in the liquid. The object can be “seeded” with some salt or sugar (or whatever substance the solution is saturated with) in order to speed up the process.

Materials

pencil or wooden skewer
string
glass jar (cleaned out pickle, jam or may jars work great)
8 cups of sugar
3 cups water
paper clip
adult help and a stove
food coloring (optional but fun!)

Lesson #24: Salt and Vinegar Crystals

Overview: We’re going to take two everyday materials, salt and vinegar, and use them to grow crystals by creating a solution and allowing the liquids to evaporate. These crystals can be dyed with food coloring, so you can grow yourself a rainbow of small crystals overnight.

What to Learn: You will be able to make more crystals and observe their formation as liquid evaporates from a solution mixed during lab. You will understand better how a crystal can grow out of a soupy mixture, and ultimately what all this has to do with rocks and minerals.

Materials

1 cup of warm water
1/4 cup salt (non-iodized works better)
2 teaspoons to 2 tablespoons of vinegar (you decide how much you want to use)
a shallow dish (like a pie plate)
a porous material to grow your crystals on (like a sponge)

Lesson #25: Salt Stalactites

Overview: Crystals can grow within a jar on a piece of string, as we say with the laundry soap crystals and rock candy, but what about outside? Today’s experiment will allow you to make some of those spectacular arrangements of minerals that you may find in caverns, called stalactites. What to Learn: The secret to getting this experiment to work has to do with the capillary action of the water as it gets drawn up the string, against the force of gravity. A stalactite is a formation of minerals found in a cave that is formed when water drips down and leaves a bit of mineral behind. Most frequently these minerals are limestone, such as in the spectacular formations of Carlsbad Caverns. Materials

two clean glass jars
yarn or string
Epsom salts
water
tin foil or cook sheet
adult help, sauce pot, and a stove

Lesson #26: Eggshell Geodes

Overview: Geodes are some of the most amazing minerals we find underground. We’re going to dissolve alum in water and place the solution into an eggshell. In real life, minerals are dissolved in groundwater and placed in a gas bubble pocket. In both cases, you will be left with a geode.

What to Learn: Geodes are formed from gas bubbles in flowing lava. Up close, a geode is a crystallized mineral deposit that is usually very dull and ordinary-looking on the outside. When you crack open a geode, however, it’s like being inside a crystal cave. We’ll use an eggshell to simulate a gas bubble in flowing lava.

Materials

hot water
plastic cup for water
plastic spoon
copper sulfate crystals
4 eggshell halves, cleaned or 2 plastic eggshells
empty egg carton
handheld magnifier

Lesson #27: Water Glass & Metal Crystals

Overview: Water Glass is another name for sodium silicate(Na₂SiO₃), which is one of the chemicals used to grow underwater rock crystal gardens. Metal refers to the metal salt seed crystal you will use to start your crystals growing. You can use any of the following metals listed. Note however, that certain metals will give you different colors of crystals.

What to Learn: The physical properties of the crystals in lab are due to specific chemicals in each mineral.

Materials

Clean glass jar
Sodium silicate
Rubber gloves
Safety glasses
Sand
One (or more) compound for different colors:

- White – calcium chloride (found on the laundry aisle of some stores)
- Purple – manganese (II) chloride
- Blue – copper (II) sulfate (common chemistry lab chemical, also used for aquaria and as an algicide for pools)
- Red – cobalt (II) chloride
- Orange – iron (III) chloride

Lesson #28: Charcoal Crystals

Overview: In this lesson, we’ll discover how rocks are composed of other minerals. This lesson provides a basic visual overview of how a rock is composed from minerals. Be warned: these crystals are very fragile!

What to Learn: As your garden grows, keep track of how the mineral mixture gets left on the surface that you use today as your garden bed. You’ll see some crystals in a few hours, but be patient! In two days, you’ll see even more. That’s what your results help you with as you compare one day’s observations with the next.

Materials

Spoon
Mixing bowl
1 sponge, rag, or sock
1 pie tin
Hand lens
Pair of goggles
50 mL table salt
50 mL ammonia (adult supervision required!)
50 mL laundry bluing
100 mL water

Want More Science Activities?

These videos are samples from my online eScience Learning program. It’s a complete science program for K-12. Plus, it’s self-guiding, so they can do it on their own.

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Thank You!

Thanks for the privilege as serving as your coach and guide in your science journey. May these videos bring you much excitement and curiosity in your learning adventure!

~Aurora

Supercharged Science

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