Rocks, Minerals, and Natural Resources Unit Module

Rocks, Minerals, and Natural Resources Unit Module

March 14-21, 2011

Lafayette High School

9th Grade Earth Science

Rachael Reeves

Instructional Planning

Spring 2011

Professor Matkins

Stories of Use and Unit Reflection

“Rocks, rocks, they rock!” This is just one of the phrases my fourth block class was repeating by the end of a week-long unit on rocks, minerals and natural resources. I had prepared myself for my students to be resistant to looking at rock and mineral sample all week, but I was pleasantly surprised by how engaged they were with the material. I think this was because we kept the pace relatively fast and each day they had specific, achievable goals to work towards. Each day, they were to learn the properties of the daily topic and be able to identify samples. I began the unit on a Monday with minerals, then spent three days on the three rock types, a day on the rock cycle, and a day on natural resources.

Each day, I had students looking at samples and tried to keep the direct instruction short and to the point. I think being a geology major helped me keep these lectures interesting because I know lots of random facts about geology that I would share with students. I was really impressed with student questions during the unit and I tried my best to balance answering their questions with keeping up with the pace I had set for myself. During this unit, I really learned the importance of having many different assignments for students to work on- especially for my general block in which students work at such different paces.

One thing that went especially well in this unit was my use of assessment. I used formative assessments daily in the form of guided notes, thumbs/up thumbs down, labs, guiding questions, etc. and summative assessments such as a resource write-up, a rock cycle video, and end-of-unit exam. From students’ daily labs, I was able to identify weak spots in their understanding to go over again. The videos students made were especially enlightening for me to see where students had gaps in their understanding of the rock cycle- I was very surprised by how difficult it was for them to understand how one rock becomes another and we spent extra time reviewing the cycle when we watched the videos later that week.

I was surprised by how much students struggled with transferring prior knowledge to new situations. When I began the unit, I wanted to build on students’ knowledge of minerals and compounds that they should have brought with them from middle school. I thought I would only need to review the concepts before moving on to how they are the building blocks of minerals, but instead I had to completely reteach what elements and compounds are, especially with my general class. Later in the unit, when we talked about the rock cycle, students couldn’t seem to remember the previous three days’ lessons on rocks. It was very difficult for them to transfer ideas from earlier in the unit to the lesson on the rock cycle. In addition, they saw each rock type as existing and being created in isolation from the other rock types. This was especially obvious after I graded their rock cycle videos and geology unit tests just before Spring Break, and I decided to review the rock cycle again with the “rock cycle game” on the Monday we returned from Spring Break. I hope to be more prepared for these misconceptions and struggles for the next time I teach a geology unit.

Unit Standards

Standard ES.5 a, b

The student will investigate and understand how to identify major rock-forming and ore minerals based on physical and chemical properties. Key concepts include

a) hardness, color and streak, luster, cleavage, fracture, and unique properties; and

b) use of minerals.

Standard ES.6 a, b, c

The student will investigate and understand the rock cycle as it relates to the origin and transformation of rock types and how to identify common rock types based on mineral composition and textures. Key concepts include

a) igneous (intrusive and extrusive) rocks;

b) sedimentary (clastic and chemical) rocks; and

c) metamorphic (foliated and unfoliated) rocks.

Standard ES.7 a, b, c, d, e

The student will investigate and understand the difference between renewable and nonrenewable resources. Key concepts include

a) fossil fuels, minerals, rocks, water, and vegetation;

b) advantages and disadvantages of various energy sources;

c) resources found in Virginia;

d) making informed judgments related to resource use and its effects on Earth systems; and

e) environmental cost and benefits.

Essential Understandings / Essential Knowledge and Skills

There is a difference between rocks and minerals.
Minerals can be identified based on specific chemical and physical properties.
Minerals are important to human wealth and welfare.
Rocks can be identified on the basis of mineral content and texture.
The processes by which rocks are formed define the three major groups of rocks.
The rock cycle is the process by which all rocks are formed and how basic Earth materials are recycled through time.
Resources are limited and are either renewable or nonrenewable.
There are advantages and disadvantages to using any energy source.
Virginia has many natural resources.
Modern living standards are supported by extensive use of both renewable and nonrenewable resources.
Extraction and use of any resource carries an environmental cost that must be weighed against economic benefit.

/ Knowledge

A mineral is a naturally occurring, inorganic, solid substance with a definite chemical composition and structure.
Minerals may be identified by their physical properties, such as hardness, color, luster, and streak.
Most rocks are made of one or more minerals.
Some major rock-forming minerals are quartz, feldspar, calcite, and mica.
Ore minerals include pyrite, magnetite, hematite, galena, graphite, and sulfur.
The major elements found in Earth’s crust are oxygen, silicon, aluminum, and iron. The most abundant group of minerals is the silicates, which contain silicon and oxygen
Igneous rock forms from molten rock that cools and hardens either below or on Earth’s surface.
Sedimentary rocks may be formed either by rock fragments or organic matter being bound together or by chemical precipitation.
Metamorphic rocks form when any rock is changed by the effects of heat, pressure, or chemical action.
Extrusive igneous rocks have small or no crystals, resulting in fine-grained or glassy textures.
Intrusive igneous rocks have larger crystals and a coarser texture.
Extrusive igneous rocks include pumice, obsidian, and basalt.
Intrusive igneous rocks include granite.
Renewable resources can be replaced by nature at a rate close to the rate at which they are used. Renewable resources include vegetation, sunlight, and surface water.
Nonrenewable resources are renewed very slowly or not at all. Nonrenewable resources include coal, oil, and minerals.
Fossil fuels are nonrenewable and may cause pollution, but they are relatively cheap and easy to use.
In Virginia, major rock and mineral resources include coal for energy, gravel and crushed stone for road construction, and limestone for making concrete.

Skills

Analyze the advantages and disadvantages of various energy sources.

Rocks, Minerals, and Natural Resources Unit

Curriculum Topic Study

Section and Outcome / Related Sources and Readings for Study and Reflection
I. Identify Adult Content Knowledge / Science Matters
Geology as a trade, earth science as a profession in addition to an academic study
Ore deposits, economic value of minerals, mining
Rock cycle

Igneous rocks (“fire formed”)
Intrusive vs. extrusive (volcanics)
Granite (intrusive, felsic) is weathering resistant and forms spectacular landforms when surrounding rock is eroded away
Sedimentary rocks
Organic vs. clastic
Sedimentary features: bedding, fossils, laminations, concretions
Sandstone, shale, limestone
Metamorphic rocks
By chemical alteration or heat/pressure
Contact vs. regional metamorphism
Processes
Sedimentary processes: weathering, erosion, deposition, compaction, cementation
Metamorphic: subduction, metamorphism (heat and pressure)
Igneous: subduction, heating, melting, cooling, crystallizing

Science for All Americans
Renewable vs. nonrenewable resources

Mineral extraction for industrial materials and other human uses
Social impacts, legislation, alternatives
Disposal of waste and pollution
Role of minerals and resources in production, industry, and everyday life
Humans overpopulation in the context of resource use
Fossil fuels

Creation of rocks and minerals from elements (in context of the rock cycle)
II. Consider Instructional Implications / Benchmarks for Science Literacy
“Students may find it harder to take seriously the less-obvious, less-dramatic, long-term effects of erosion by wind and water, annual deposits of sediment, the creep of continents, and the rise of mountains. Students’ recognition of those effects will depend on an improving sense of long time periods and familiarity with the effect of multiplying tiny fractions by very large numbers (slow rates by long times)”
“As people have used earth resources they have altered some earth systems. Students can gradually come to recognize how human behavior affects the earth’s capacity to sustain life. Questions of environmental policy should be pursued when students become interested in them, usually in the middle grades or later, but care should be taken not to bypass science for advocacy. Critical thinking based on scientific concepts and understanding is the primary goal for science education”
National Science Education Standards
Earth and Space Science, Content Standard D: As a result of their activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop an understanding of energy in the earth system, geochemical cycles, origin and evolution of the earth system, and origin and evolution of the universe.

In context of plate tectonics and rock cycle

Science in Personal and Social Perspectives, Content Standard F: As a result of activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding of personal and community health, population growth, natural resources, environmental quality, natural and human-induced hazards, science and technology in local, national, and global challenges

Population growth
Natural resources are used to maintain human populations
Earth does not have infinite resources; increasing human consumption places severe stress on the natural processes that renew some resources, and it depletes those resources that cannot be renewed
Humans use many natural systems as resources. Natural systems have the capacity to reuse waste, but that capacity is limited.
Natural and human induced hazards

III. Identify
Concepts and Specific Ideas / Benchmarks for Science Literacy
The formation, weathering, sedimentation, and reformation of rock constitute a continuing “rock cycle” in which the total amount of material stays the same as is forms change
Sediments of sand and smaller particles (sometimes containing the remains of organisms) are gradually buried and are cemented together by dissolved minerals to form solid rock again.
Sedimentary rock buried deep enough may be reformed by pressure and heat, perhaps melting and recrystallizing into different kinds of rock. These re-formed rock layers may be forced up again to become land surface and even mountains. Subsequently, this new rock too will erode. Rock bears evidence of the minerals, temperatures, and forces that created it.
Thousands of layers of sedimentary rock confirm the long history of the changing surface of the earth and the changing life forms whose remains are found in successive layers. The youngest layers are not always found on top, because of folding, breaking, and uplift of layers
National Science Education Standards
Earth and Space Science, Content Standard D: As a result of their activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop an understanding of energy in the earth system, geochemical cycles, origin and evolution of the earth system, and origin and evolution of the universe.

In context of plate tectonics and rock cycle

Population growth
Natural resources are used to maintain human populations
Earth does not have infinite resources; increasing human consumption places severe stress on the natural processes that renew some resources, and it depletes those resources that cannot be renewed
Humans use many natural systems as resources. Natural systems have the capacity to reuse waste, but that capacity is limited.
Natural and human induced hazards

IV. Examine Research on Student Learning / Making Sense of Secondary Science- Research Into Children's Ideas
“Children recognize rocks by their weight, hardness, color and jaggedness. They tend to apply to word ‘rock’ intuitively and often to mineral samples. To the children studied, rocks had to be large, heavy and jagged. Smaller fragments were described as stones. Rock was at first regarded as being made of only one substance, with consequent difficulty in recognizing granite as rock. Children were also confused when deciding whether a sample was natural or not, house brick being regarded as rock because it contains some natural material. The opposite view was being taken: that a cut and polished piece of marble is not a rock and is not natural because to be natural it must be ‘untouched by mankind’. Children may classify rock specimens as ‘crystal rocks’ and ‘normal rocks’ and the word ‘crystal’ is used to describe both rock and mineral specimens, but only if the sample is thought to be attractive in appearance.
“Most children in Happs’s studies did not associate ‘mineral’ with rocks. They were more likely o think of mineral water, minerals and vitamins or mineral resources. Occasionally, I was suggested that minerals are ‘small stones or precious things’. After a particular teaching program, minerals were treated as being the same as rocks and both words were used indiscriminately in classifying rock samples as ‘volcanic’ (regardless of whether they were sedimentary, metamorphic or igneous).
“Very few children in Happs’s study appreciated the relationship between sedimentary rocks and the sedimentary processes by which they are formed. Such rocks were described as ‘volcanic’ and thus included the notion that heat is involved in their formation. Happs reports that additional confusion arises when children confuse the layers apparent in sedimentary rocks with the cleavage planes often associated with metamorphic rocks.
“Most children in Happs’s sample, when confronted with specimens of igneous rocks, had no ideas on formation to offer and merely described their appearance. A small minority associated igneous rocks with fire or volcanoes.
“Happs found that the word ‘metamorphic’ was associated by most children with metamorphism in animals and they linked metamorphic rocks with butterflies and plants in general.
V. Examine Coherency and Articulation / Atlas of Science Literacy
The many different kinds of rock and landforms are a result of a variety of processes that continually reshape the earth’s surface, including uplift of mountains, earthquakes and volcanoes, and the weathering, erosion, sedimentation, and reformation of rock. The benchmarks in this map progress toward an understanding of these processes, the age of the earth, and the fact that rock cycles through the earth’s surface, changing its form and location even as the total amount of material is conserved.
Related sections: Constancy and change (linear and cyclical change and equilibrium), models (slow, deep, immense processes), and scale (long time periods), plate tectonics
Research: students of all ages may hold the view that the world was always as it is now, or that any changes that have occurred must have been sudden and comprehensive.
VI. Clarify State Standards and District Curriculum / District Curriculum Guide

Minerals: properties, tests, special characteristics, uses, hand-sample ID
Rocks, hand-sample ID, rock cycle
Igneous
Sedimentary
Metamorphic
Natural resources: types, uses and terminology

Virginia State Standards of Learning
Standard ES.5 a, b
The student will investigate and understand how to identify major rock-forming and ore minerals based on physical and chemical properties. Key concepts include
a) hardness, color and streak, luster, cleavage, fracture, and unique properties; and
b) use of minerals.
Standard ES.6 a, b, c
The student will investigate and understand the rock cycle as it relates to the origin and transformation of rock types and how to identify common rock types based on mineral composition and textures. Key concepts include
a) igneous (intrusive and extrusive) rocks;
b) sedimentary (clastic and chemical) rocks; and
c) metamorphic (foliated and unfoliated) rocks.
Standard ES.7 a, b, c, d, e
The student will investigate and understand the difference between renewable and nonrenewable resources. Key concepts include
a) fossil fuels, minerals, rocks, water, and vegetation;
b) advantages and disadvantages of various energy sources;
c) resources found in Virginia;
d) making informed judgments related to resource use and its effects on Earth systems; and
e) environmental cost and benefits

March 14, 2011 (Day 1)- Minerals