Opportunities abound to teach about minerals and rocks under the new “Physical Setting/Earth Science” core curriculum and the New Jersey Science Standards. As part of our background discussion before today’s scientist presentation, we will consider some ways to achieve these Standards.

Guest Scientist: David Walker
PowerPoint Presentation and HTML version

Rocks and minerals are, obviously, basic to teaching Earth science. In this program, we find out how a petrologist looks at them, especially the crystalline state that characterizes minerals. The best way to demonstrate that minerals are crystalline is to show that they diffract X-rays. The variety of diffraction patterns produced is extremely useful in distinguishing different minerals from each other. A demonstration of diffraction and the theory behind it will be presented with practical applications.

Mineral and Rock Internet Sites for Student Investigations

For today’s applications of educational technology, we will consider ways to incorporate useful Internet sites to create investigations for our students.

Filamentality
Filamentality is a fill-in-the-blank interactive Web site that guides you through picking a topic, searching the Web, gathering good Internet sites, and turning Web resources into learning activities. It helps combine the "filaments" of the Web with a learner's "mentality". Support is built-in through Mentality Tips that guide you along the way to creating a Web-based activity you can share with others even if you don't know anything about HTML, Web servers, or all that www-dot stuff.
http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/ 

Virtual Simulations of Microscopy and Optics - Make sure you check out the Polarized Light Microscopy to see how crystallized specimens appear when viewed through a polarized light microscope. Samples include a Moon rock, a dinosaur bone, spinach, amethyst and many others.
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/optics/tutorials/index.html

We will also be looking at a live demonstration of how participating teachers are already using the materials they learn here with their students. For this we will have a demonstration of a volcano experiment by James Signorelli. 

• Lesson Plan (Volcanic Eruption)

Rocks and Minerals Resources

Photo Gallery