Minerals They Own Property? Standard Addressed: Earth Science The properties of rocks and minerals reflect the processes that formed them. As a basis for understanding this concept: Students know how to identify common rock-forming minerals (including quartz, calcite, feldspar, mica, and hornblende) and ore minerals by using a table of diagnostic properties. Lesson Objective: Students will investigate properties of minerals using traditional tests (streak, hardness, luster, magnetism, and chemical.) Materials: minerals penny paper clip steel file tile vinegar plastic cup wax paper pipettes magnet CA Dept of Education mineral information reference handout (attached) Student Talk Strategies: (Descriptions at end of lesson) Report to a Partner Think-Pair-Share Classroom Management: Bring cereal box(es) to class for Engage. Gather materials for minerals investigation. Distribute a collection of minerals and some magnifiers to each group. Create the Who Am I? game cards for Evaluate. Photocopy the Get One-Give One handout for Extend. ENGAGE: Connect to Prior Knowledge and Experience, Create Emotionally Safe Learning Environment, Preview New Vocabulary Estimated time: 10 minutes Teachers ask students if they have heard that, to stay healthy, they are to eat their vitamins and minerals. What are minerals? Minerals are something in foods that we are supposed to eat. They are also the building blocks of rocks.
Teacher shows students the ingredients on a cereal box which shows calcium, potassium, and iron. Teacher shows students how to use a magnifying glass. Why they are important? What minerals do we eat? We need them to stay healthy and they are in rocks. EXPLORE: Hands-On Learning, Contextualize Language, Use of Scaffolding (Graphic Organizers, Thinking Maps, Cooperative Learning), Use of Multiple Intelligences, Check for Understanding Estimated time: 20 minutes How do we identify minerals? In this investigation you are going to study minerals and act like scientists do when they find minerals on the Earth. Teacher models each of the tests before the students do them and shows the students the data table they will complete (see attached) Teacher reminds students of vocabulary while walking around the room. Report to a partner- Each student reports his/her own answer to a peer. The students then listen to their partner s response. Both will report what partner shared when prompted. How are the minerals the same? How is each sample different? What materials have you used? Explain what information you gathered by using the materials you did. Students will investigate properties of minerals using traditional tests such as streak, hardness, luster, magnetism, and chemicals. Students Report to a Partner before they answer the teacher s questions. They have faces and edges and corners. They are different colors. The magnifier, vinegar, tile, penny, and paper clip help tell us what the mineral is. Students tell the results of their individual tests. Teacher uses vocabulary in context during the discussion and exploration. EXPLAIN: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing to Communicate Conceptual Understanding Estimated time: 14 minutes Teacher helps students to make meaning through group Think, Pair, Share: Students share with their partner and Students Think, Pair, Share before answering teacher s
discussion. Vocabulary Mohs scale of hardness, streak, luster, cleavage, property (a characteristic that we can observe to distinguish one sample from another) Background Information for Teacher: see attached the group next to them and report to whole class. Which mineral did you find was the hardest? How do you know? Can you organize the minerals in the mineral kit in order from soft to hard according to Mohs hardness scale? questions. Quartz--it scratched the steel file Talc, calcite, feldspar, quartz EVALUATE: Thinking Maps, Summarize Lesson and Review Vocabulary, Variety of Assessment Tools, Games to Show Understanding Estimated time: 15minutes Teacher assesses student understanding throughout the investigation by asking questions. In addition, teacher shows students how to play the game. Teacher shows students the foldable they are going to create to summarize their findings from their investigation. For example, if the mineral on my back says, talc, and I ask, Is this the hardest mineral?, my partner would say, No! Is it black? No Is it white? Yes Is it soft? Yes Is it talc? Yes You are going to use the properties of the minerals to try to identify them. The minerals in this game are the same ones that the students investigated in the Explore. Students play the game Who Am I?. They get the name of a mineral from the teacher who tapes the word on their backs. They must then show their word to a partner and then ask yes or no questions of their partner to identify the mineral. The only answers that a partner can give are yes or no. If correct, they go to the teacher to get another mineral. Students will show that they understand the properties of minerals when they ask and answer questions of each other. Students do a foldable on identifying minerals, i.e. luster, hardness, etc., including ways to identify and definition.
EXTEND: Group Projects, Plays, Murals, Songs, Connections to Real World, Connections to Other Curricular Areas Estimated time: 15 minutes Create a mineral museum. Ask students to hunt around the classroom or home for minerals or mineral derivatives that have been put to practical use. Place the objects on a display table and make an exhibit card for each object. The card should tell what the object is, what it is made of, and how it is used. Teacher shows students how to fill out the Get One-Give One worksheet. Teacher has students choose a mineral and research how people and industry use the mineral. Real world connection: Students can discuss mining practices that may help or hinder the environment, i.e. strip mining. What is the object? What is it made of? How is it used? Students refer to the lists of mineral uses and actively look to find minerals and what items are made of minerals. Students do a foldable on the ways minerals are used in the home. Students draw a poster indicating the way minerals are used at home. Students take five minutes and fill out Get One-Give One chart on uses of minerals. Students chant Minerals Here, Minerals There. Students research a mineral and find out how people and industry use the mineral.
Student Talk Strategies Adapted from Avenues, Hampton Brown, 2007. Teacher Background Knowledge Geologists describe and identify minerals according to a set of properties such as hardness, cleavage, color, luster and streak. Hardness is determined by Mohs hardness scale, which refers to the materials relative ability to scratch other materials or be scratched by them. The identification process requires matching the observed properties of a sample with those noted on a diagnostic table of properties. This investigation focuses on only a few of the most common rock-forming minerals (quartz, calcite, feldspar, mica, hornblende) as well as important ores such as galena (lead) and hematite (iron). Minerals are the building blocks of rocks. They are naturally formed chemical elements or compounds having a definite range in chemical composition and usually a characteristic crystal form; they are naturally formed solids having three-dimensional, orderly internal arrangements of atoms. Minerals are inorganic (not made from living things), are formed in nature, are solids, and have the same crystalline pattern and chemical composition for the most part. Minerals are made up of only one substance. Rocks typically have two or more minerals. Minerals are the building blocks of rock. How to identify minerals - http://www.sdnhm.org/kids/minerals/how-to.html Rocks and minerals - http://geology.com/teacher/rocks.shtml Minerals and geology - http://education.usgs.gov/ Mineral Information Institute - http://www.mii.org/
Data Table: Minerals Hardness (scratched with fingernail, penny, paper clip) Luster (metallic or non-metallic, shiny) Streak (white, gray, golden yellow, reddish brown, black, greenish black) Color (colorless, white, beige, pink, gray, red, dark green, dark brown, brassy, yellow, rose, silver-gray) Other (bubbles, heavy for its size, used for jewelry, feels greasy, magnetic flakes)
Minerals Here, Minerals There by Dr. Terry Shanahan, UC Irvine Learn English Through Science Minerals here, minerals there, Minerals, minerals everywhere. Shiny minerals reflecting, Black minerals sparkling, White minerals layering. Minerals under massive mountains, Minerals beside fiery volcanoes, Minerals within the Earth s crust, Minerals in the flowing river. Minerals here, minerals there, Minerals, minerals everywhere. MINERALS! MINERALS! MINERALS!
GET ONE GIVE ONE Be sure to fill out the name of the person you got one from on the line to begin with. My content sentence to give is: I got the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.