What Is Dirt?

Lab Brief #7

🎯 Your mission

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

⚡ The twist

The slowest changes are the biggest ones.

What you'll learn

Dirt is made of tiny bits of rock, dead leaves, and tiny creatures you cannot see.

Key words

rock
A hard, solid piece of the Earth made of minerals.
dirt
Loose soil made of tiny bits of rock and dead plants.

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

rocks
sand

⚠️ Safety first

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

Step 1 of 4 · Read

Say the vocabulary words out loud. Can you repeat them?

Step 2 of 4 · Do

Feel different types of dirt, sand, and rocks. Which is smoothest?

Step 3 of 4 · Observe

Use your eyes, ears, and hands to explore. What do you notice?

Step 4 of 4 · Record

Color a picture to show what happened.

Question 1 of 3

What makes soil more than just dirt?

Question 2 of 3

Can you find rocks outside?

Question 3 of 3

Do trees lose leaves in fall?

Mind = blown

🌊 The deepest part of the ocean is deeper than Mount Everest is tall.

Nice work!

You got 0 of 3 right.

Next: Splashing in Mud 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: 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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