Rock Layers Tell Stories

Lab Brief #16

🎯 Your mission

Predict it first. Then prove yourself right (or wrong).

⚡ The twist

Today's mountain was yesterday's ocean floor.

What you'll learn

Layers of rock tell the story of Earth's history. Older layers are at the bottom!

Key words

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

Make a hypothesis first

Guess: where will the water go first?

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

Get ready

🧰 What you need

rocks
sand
water

⚠️ Safety first

Mop up spills straight away so nobody slips, and keep liquids away from sockets.

Step 1 of 4 · Read

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

Step 2 of 4 · Do

Pour water on a pile of sand and a pile of rocks. Watch how the water flows differently.

Step 3 of 4 · Observe

Compare what happened to what you predicted.

Step 4 of 4 · Record

Tell the class one thing you learned today.

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

🌋 There are 1,500 active volcanoes on Earth right now.

Nice work!

You got 0 of 3 right.

All lessons

🎯

Next Smart Experiment

We'll pick an experiment that matches exactly how you're thinking right now.

✨ More to explore

🌍 Where you see this in real life: Today's weather, tomorrow's beach, next century's coastline — all this.

🏆 Stretch challenge (try it this week): Look at the sky for 5 minutes and try to predict tomorrow's weather.

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

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Rock Layers Tell Stories

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