Sorting Rocks

Lab Brief #9

🎯 Your mission

Set it up. Test it. Be amazed.

⚡ The twist

The slowest changes are the biggest ones.

What you'll learn

Rocks can be sorted by size, color, shape, and texture. Geologists study rocks to learn about Earth!

Key words

rock
A hard, solid piece of the Earth made of minerals.

Make a hypothesis first

Predict: which will erode faster?

Say your guess out loud — then find out if you were right.

Get ready

🧰 What you need

food coloring
rocks

⚠️ Safety first

Have an adult check your set-up before you start, and tidy everything away afterwards.

Step 1 of 4 · Read

Look at the new words. Can you say each one?

Step 2 of 4 · Do

Sort rocks by color, size, and texture. Record how many are in each group.

Step 3 of 4 · Observe

Watch carefully. What happens?

Step 4 of 4 · Record

Draw and write about what you learned.

Question 1 of 3

What are the three types of rocks?

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 2 of 3

What is soil made of?

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 3 of 3

What is erosion?

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Mind = blown

🪨 Every grain of sand on every beach used to be a mountain.

Nice work!

You got 0 of 3 right.

Next: What Causes Earthquakes?All lessons

🎯

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✨ More to explore

🌍 Where you see this in real life: This is shaping the ground you walk on, slowly, every single day.

🏆 Stretch challenge (try it this week): Find a rock outside and try to guess how old it is.

👨‍👩‍👧 For the dinner table: “What's the slowest change you can think of?”

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Sorting Rocks

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