Our Awesome Hands-on Rocks and Minerals Unit Study
We recently finished a rocks and minerals unit study. I want to share what we did so you can be inspired to think simply when designing your homeschool unit studies.
First, I always have a reason for what we study: it can be someone’s interest, a field trip or because it’s a gap that needs to be filled. In this case, it was a combination of someone’s interest and an upcoming field trip that would be part of the study. One of my kids is a bit of a rock hound. He asks for Geode kits for every birthday and loves filling his pockets with them when we are out and about. We also were planning a family trip to Arizona and Utah to visit several National Parks including the Petrified Forest, the Grand Canyon, and Arches. Each have their own unique rocks that make them national treasures.
Second, I always have a goal for my unit studies, and it’s not to finish the book. It’s the level of knowledge I want them to have or questions I want them to answer. When we studied Food Groups my goal was to encourage healthy eating. For this Geology unit it was to appreciate and understand the rocks we would see on our trip and for each child to build a rock collection they can take to the 4-H fair in the summer. Our goal is super practical, but it gives us a framework for what we are studying and when it will end. I called it done our unit after our road trip was finished and the collections were started.
Using 4-H Project Books for Unit Study
Our goals did not include a full geology unit study about how rocks were formed and general earth science, it was more about identifying the rocks and minerals that we collect and find beautiful. Our guide for our exploration was the 4-H Geology workbook. This was easy because my kids are in 4-H, but even if you are not in a 4-H club you can purchase the workbook from the 4-H website. There are 3 levels to the geology project in the book, but we only completed the first level during our unit study. As a 4-H student, we could return to the project for 3 years building on our knowledge and growing our rock collection each year.
One thing I learned alongside my kids is that minerals are made from chemical elements and compounds, each one a single pure ingredient, while rocks are a mixture of elements and compounds. I sure was glad we did a chemistry unit study last year so we understood elements and compounds!
One of my favorite parts about being involved with 4-H is the emphasis on growth. Completing projects is not about finishing a workbook, but about learning something new. At the fair when projects are judged, the judges often want to know things like, how did you grow and what do you want to explore next in this area? The project books and fair projects are about practical hands-on learning so that was a big part of our unit study. Homeschooling is about learning and discovering as a family, which is why 4-H fits so well into our schooling!
Building a Rock Collection
Since this was a Rocks and Minerals unit study, one of the things we did was that each child built their own rock collection. We did several activities to acquire rocks over the semester and then each child picked their favorites to make up their collection. One child chose BIG rocks, another one chose small rocks , and they chose some other favorites not paying attention to the size. It was fun watching each build a collection that inspired them.
A great way to find rock samples is to visit rock shops. Some even sell bags of dirt with many samples hidden inside that you can search for using gold panning or box screens and water. Two kids enjoyed this “panning for gold” activity which gave us many mineral samples to choose from for the rock collections.
We also borrowed a rock tumbler from a friend and bought a kit to tumble. While I knew it would take several days and be loud, I didn’t know there were multiple tumbles involved. The kit we bought had us repeat the process with 4 different grits, each finer than the one before to polish our rocks. I was surprised how much the rocks changed and even shrunk from the polishing process. The polished rocks look nothing like the raw rocks, making their identification very different for the two groups.
the third way we built our rock collection was collecting them on our road trip. One of our stops was to visit family near the Petrified Forest National Park. Petrified wood is plentiful on the ground in the whole region. It is illegal to take any home from inside the National Park, but on private land it is fine to collect it off the ground. We found many beautiful samples to add to our collection. Some petrified wood looks like fresh wood until you pick it up and other samples look nothing like wood and are red and gray quartz, yet both are the same mineral. There was one place in the park where the ground was covered in wood chips, except they weren’t woodchips, they were rocks! I had to touch them to be sure my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me!
I made a rock info sheet for the kids to use to collect data about their samples. There is a page for your State Mineral as well as a few options for any mineral you choose.
Hands on Geology Exploration
In addition to building a rock collection, our second goal was to grow in appreciation and understanding for the National Parks we planned to visit. Arches, the Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest all have unique rocks and things to teach us about geology. One thing we did to prepare to visit the parks was download the Junior Ranger books from Arches, Petrified Forest’s website where they are available.
The Grand Canyon Junior Ranger book is not available online and can be picked up from the visitor center in the park. I especially appreciated the Grand Canyon book, which focused on documenting your experience in the park and not teaching about the park’s features (which are explained plenty of other places) and this made it fun to use while recording our visit there.
Arches
Arches is on of the “Big Five” national parks in Utah. We also visited Canyonlands which is nearby but Arches was definitely our favorite of the two. The rocks here are a vibrant orange rocks due to iron. There is one mound in the park that is green. When we asked a park ranger about the different color, he told us it was also because of the iron! There was so much iron in the area, when we dropped a magnetic toy in the dirt at our campground, it attracted iron filings from the dirt! Many of the soft rock in Arches are shaped by the elements and wind slowly brushing the outer layers off. In some places you can see it blowing at the rock to create alcoves.
Grand Canyon
It’s pretty easy to think about rocks when it comes to the Grand Canyon. The depth of the canyon makes it easy to see the various rock layers in the nearly mile deep canyon. We took the time to hike a bit into the canyons which gave us a different view of the canyon and took us closer to different layers. Some rock layers were soft enough to support vegetation while others created a barren rock surface. These different layers also provide a rainbow of color too.
Petrified Forest
I mentioned before about the petrified wood we picked up while visiting our family near the park. In the park there are two sections that show us the beauty of geology in different ways. The southern part of the park is where you find plentiful Petrified wood. There are multiple trails you can take through the fallen logs turned to rock. The northern part of the park is called the Painted desert for the sandstone buttes and plateaus that appear striped with different layers of rock. We are used to finding beauty in forests and farmland, these rocks seemed like we were on another planet or a sci-fi movie.
A Few More Activity Ideas
A few more things we did while we as part of our rocks and minerals unit study were get books from the library, find local experts who could teach us and visit a museum.
For any unit study a library visit should be at the top of your list of stops. We visited a few times getting different books for our Rock and mineral identification as well as others we enjoyed along the way. The librarians were a great help at suggestions and letting us know if some from the adult collection would be helpful in addition to the children’s department. I’m linking some of our favorites that we used.
No matter where you live, you can probably find a rock hound who would be happy to share their knowledge with you. We found a retired geologist who took time to show us their collection and teach us about our state mineral, Fluorite. They even gave each of the kids a sample so they could include it in their collection. Finding out about your state mineral is a great place to start with a Rock and Mineral unit to make it personal. I know it’s not practical for everyone to travel to the Grand Canyon for a field trip. Grab the worksheet set below to record what you learn about you state mineral
The last thing we did for our unit was visit a local Geology museum. Each region of the country will have a different mix of common rocks and minerals. See what is in your local state museum or park! We were able to view many samples from around the world and see both polished and raw samples of different gems. We also go to view a fossil collection as well. The neat thing about Rocks and minerals is they are highly durable so our guide let us do lots of touching.
Rocks and Minerals Unit Study Summary
I have to say I doubted myself when we were in the middle of our explorations. But as I write it all out I am amazed at all we did, even if it wasn’t book based learning. Usually I do pick books to build our learning around but this time it was an experience so it looked different. I start planning for all unit studies in the same way, with a topic and start thinking about what you can do related to that topic.
- Books to Read
- Places to Visit
- People to talk to
- Activities to do at home
Remember a unit study is just a set of learning activities around a single topic. What topic will you start brainstorming for your next unit study?
