During the month of November the eighth graders finished up the unit on minerals. They used their understandings of physical properties to determine the identity of a set of 12 minerals. They used observations of the color, streak, cleavage, fracture, crystal shape, density, hardness, and other properties to describe these minerals and to eventually identify the name of each mineral.
Currently the boys and girls are learning about the three types of rocks. They completed a lab to learn how to use features of color and texture to determine the formation history of igneous rocks and to identify igneous rocks. Soon we will venture to the nearby cemetery to see how foliated and non-foliated metamorphic rocks make interesting gravestones. Following this mini-field trip the kids will make models of sedimentary rocks and do a lab in which they will identify 12 sedimentary rocks.