24 Rocks and Minerals?! Where Do We Start?!

On Monday, Laura and I did our 3rd lesson on rocks and minerals.  This was probably the most difficult based on the fact that we had to combine lessons four and five.  In order to do these lessons, we had to somehow reintroduce the 12 rocks that we started with along with 12 minerals.  The main concept was for the students to understand that rocks are made up of many different minerals, where as minerals are pure.

We decided that 12 minerals and 12 rocks would be too much for the students to handle, so we lowered it down to only 6 rocks and 12 minerals.  Unfortunately, this did not make anything easier.  We first had the students talk with one another about what they knew about minerals, and possible questions they had about minerals.  We then discussed as a class about the ideas they all gathered.  When they returned to their seats, we observed the first 3 minerals together, in order to show what we were looking for.  After observing all 12 minerals, we then introduced 6 of the rocks that they had already observed in the previous lessons.  The students were to find similarities and differences between the rocks and minerals, which they did just fine with, but they seemed to not grasp the idea that rocks are made up of minerals.

After a concluding discussion about the similarities and differences between the rocks and minerals, the teacher informed us that the students were missing the important point trying to be addressed.  We then brought out rock number 1 (granite) which was obviously made up of various minerals, and mineral #11 which was obvious to be made up of only one mineral.  We had the students observe both these objects to compare them with one another.  They finally were able to figure out that rocks are made up of various minerals, while minerals are pure and only made up of one thing.

Overall I believe that Laura and I had a successful lesson, but we definitely discovered a few aspects that we could have changed.  Because this lesson was made up of two different plans, we should have just limited the observations to 6 minerals and 6 rocks, being observed one by one so that the students understood that rocks are composed of different minerals.  Our time management was controlled very well, even though 45 minutes was hard to manage with so much information to cover.  However, we made sure to have enough time at the end of the class to discuss the lesson, and to go over the main points to grasp.  We made sure to address the process skills that the students would be using during their lesson (observing, talking with their partners, recording information, and finding similarities and differences between the rocks and minerals).  In conclusion, we will bring all the feedback and experiences we have learned to better our future lessons.