What Is Dirt?

Lab Brief #14

🎯 Your mission

Set it up. Test it. Be amazed.

⚡ The twist

Weather isn't random — it's just complicated.

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

Before you observe: what shape will it leave?

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

Look closely! What do you see?

Step 4 of 4 · Record

Draw a picture of what you learned today.

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

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

Nice work!

You got 0 of 3 right.

Next: Pretty Snowflakes 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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