Experiments+&+Observations

=  Lesson 1 -     Mock Rocks         = =          =

In this lesson, we observed "Mock Rocks" to see all the properties of the rock to see how rocks are different. (201)
The rock that we studied today probably looked like the stuff inside a wall - plaster. The minerals on the rock looked like M&M's cut in half. The Mock Rock smelled like plaster. The diameter of my rock was 4cm and the depth was 2.5cm. The texture of it was bumpy and the sides were a little pointy. (Mike - 201)

We used a measuring tape to measure the diameter, circumference and depth of our "Mock Rock"The Mock Rock felt sandy and fragile. (Cassandra - 201)

The size was a medium circle (rough texture). There were red, green, and tan colors in the rock. I noticed that when I tried to measure the minerals in the mock rock, they were all 1.5cm. (Evalyss - 201)

My rock sort of looked like an egg. (Karina - 201)

==     [|Lesson #1 Earth Materials 010.AVI] (This is a great video of Borris talking about the properties of his "Mock Rock". Click the link above to view his video.      ==



Some conclusions from 309 :
=="I discovered that mock rocks are not real rocks. They are just example rocks." - Danielle 309. "I learned that all rocks are not the same and I also learned that rocks have properties." - Keyonna 309. "I learned that when you use a hand lens, you see more things on the object you are looking at." - Rosalia 309. "I learned that some rocks are heavy and some are not so heavy and can be really big and some can be really small." - Albert 309. "I learned that rocks have properties and also that Mock Rocks smell like Play Dough." - Annavonh 309==

307 had a great 2 days of science!!!!!
Angel-We broke apart the mock rocks! Jonathan-Instead of a hammer, we used a nail! We were in the SAFETY ZONE!!!!!! KImberly D--We broke the mock rock and put its sand in a VIAL one third full and we added 25 ml. of water (h20)...we learned about h2o in third grade! Cool! Ashley-We left the vial with water in it overnight! Kimberly C-Then we poured the liquid out into the PETRI DISH! Dileysha--Pusimos el agua aparte en un plato de ciencias....... STAY TUNED FOR MORE SCIENCE EXCITEMENT FROM ROOM 307!!!!!! WE THINK GEOLOGY ROCKS!!!!!!!! Signing off foR now......

More from 307... Today was a great day in science for 307! We discovered how MOCK ROCKS are SIMILIAR to chocolate chip cookies! Miss Davis walked around with a REAL chocolate chip cookie and we had to think, " Mmmmmm...how is the COOKIE a lot like a MOCK ROCK?" We then had to draw a cookie and a mock rock and LABEL the parts!!!! Then, we got to EAT the cookie! Science is fun and YUMMY!!!!!!  From Room 104 The next day, the water looked tanish and greenish inside the vial. When we looked at our petri dishes when the water evaporated, there were crystals there. - David

The mock rocks looked a little like beach sand. - Noah

=Lesson 1.2 Taking Rocks Apart=  We used a "pick" to take the mock rocks apart to see what the ingredients of the rock are.

I learned that a mineral cannot be broken into pieces but a rock can. Can you believe that three layers of bubbles, sand and water were in the vial. The second day I observed the vial, it had 4 layers: 1 layer was some sand at the bottom, and some smooth sand and some white stuff. I don't know what it is yet. There was green water and little bubbles at the top. The sand that was in the vial, it was from sea water and it smelled like it too (Kelly).

I learned that a mineral cannot be broken down. I wonder what the white stuff inside the vial is? The white stuff had a little brown color in it and it was on the bottom of the vial (Saadia).

After shaking the vial and then letting it settle, we can see one more layer. But I didn't see a white layer. The next day I observed the vial I did. I discovered that minerals make up a rock and mock rocks look like chocolate chip cookies. I claim that when you shake the vial and let it settle, the water brought out another ingredient in the mock rock (Daniel).

I claim that if you add water to a mock rock we can find out what is in it (Rodin).

Jennifer in 201 talking with Ms. Pariseau about the difference between rocks and minerals. = = =  media type="file" key="Lesson    = = = =Take a look at this video of Kelly and Mrs. Salvatore having a great scientific discussion about his experiment. [|HPIM0186.AVI]=

I learned that a mineral can't break, even with a pick (David - 104) After settling overnight, in the vial with the sand, the water changed to green (Joshua - 104) After taking the rock apart, I tried to break a white mineral but it wouldn't break (Rocio - 104). After looking at the mock rock with a magnifying glass, the mock rock had green and red colors within it. It was like bumpy and it wasn't that big (Lizanny - 104) The red and green things were minerals (Tyquasia - 104)

307EXPERIMENT NEWS! Kevin-We investigated the petri dish. Angela--We discovered the mock rock ingredients! The mock rock is pretend! JeffreyMOCK---pretend. Dileysha-Vimos el plato con cristales. Jonathan--We learned what the mock rock was made of! Anthony--We saw how the water evaporated into salt crystals! IleniaWe discovered little x's in the salt crystals! Joseann-We discovered the salt crystals looked like diamonds! Erick-We discovered the rock came from sand. Zaira--We observed what was inside rocks.

 =Lesson 2.1 - Observing Minerals = We had four minerals in our group today and we had to observe the minerals and describe the color, shape and texture of them in our Scientist's Notebooks.

Mineral #1 is Sodium Sulfate. It was bumpy, hard, grey white and brown and it was shaped like a triangle. - James 201

From 104 - The rock was soft and smooth. It feels like it was made of powder and salt. - Lizanny The color was white with sparkles. The texture was bumpy. The shape was a triangle. My rock looks like a small, sparkly slice of pizza. - Alicia

Mineral #4There was one other rock and on the top it was like a greenish glass and on the bottom it was dark, dark brown and it was bumpy too. We think it's quartz. There was a little speck of red that looked like blood color in the mineral too. Its shape was hard to describe. "Mineral #4 looked like it could have come from the sea" (James) - Seline 201

From 104 - It was cracked, bluish and green. It looks like a piece of glass. - Lisa It was green and it is bumpy and heavy. - Milan

Mineral #3 looked like it was used to make powder. It was white and it looked like it had sprinkles on it. It was medium sized. This mineral was also smooth on one side and a little bumpy on the other - Elva 201

From 104 - It was white and it looked like snow. Some parts were shiny. - Tyquasia It was shiny and skinny. It looked like a crystal and it was white. Lisa

Mineral #2 color was white, black and peach. It had two cracks on the bottom and one of them looked like it had something stuffed inside it. It was black. It looked kind of like a mountain because it was flat on one side but had bumps on the other. Angel 201 From 104 - It looks like a pointy rectangle. It looks like its hard sand. It feels very hard. - Bounsavath. It was fat, rough, brown, and sparkly.- Isaias It was shiny, brown, orangy, a little grey, brown and spottish and square. -David It was white and grey and it was brown. -Reuben Mineral 2 was white, orange and grey. It had some cracks. -Lisa

Comments from our Group about Science: This year in science is fun because we get to share what we learn with others. I think it's better than last year. We are showing people what we are doing through the wiki. We get to compare what we are learning to others and see what they are doing too. I'm remembering more and learning more because of how we are learning in science this year. It's fun watching ourselves be scientists! The pictures we are taking really help show what we are learning together. The Tablet is really cool too because we get to write on it like we do in our real notebooks! From 307... Hi everyone! We had a FANTASTIC day today in science! Great science teamwork and sharing! We were busy scientists observing the amazing characteristics of minerals. We do not know the names of the minerals yet, but we do know that real geologists need to look at a lot more than just color! For example, all four of our mystery minerals had white! So....this makes it hard to identify them just by looking at color. We also measured and weighed them to get even more data. Next time---we will do the scratch test to determine hardness. We'll come back then to tell you more! Love, 307!

= Lesson 2.2 Testing for Hardness =


==Prediction: I think we can use the tools because a penny is hard and a paper clip is bendable and the fingernail is too soft. I think we can determine our minerals with these tools by smashing the item on a mineral. I think this because we can test how much damage it did to the mineral. I think we can rub our fingernails, penny or paper clip against something and then use the hand lens to see the minerals. I think this because we can feel the texture on the mineral. I think we can try to scratch it with our fingernail and we can rub it with a penny and we can determine it by doing. I think this because we can use all three tools. - Jahira, Alejandro, Alexis, Anastasia 309==

Claims & Evidence

 * I claim that fluorite is harder than calcite because fluorite can be scratched with two tools and clacite can only be scratched by one. Joseph 309
 * I claim that quartz is the hardest mineral because quartz cannot be scratched by any of these tools. Alina 309.
 * I claim that gypsum is the softest mineral because it could be scratched with all three tools. Jahira 309
 * I claim that calcite is the third hardest mineral because fluorite and quartz are harder and gypsum is softer. Alejandro 309.

=
I learned that gypsum is the softest mineral we tested because on our scratch test chart, it was scratched by three of the tools we used: fingernail, penny and paper clip. I learned the words quartz, fluorite, calcite and gypsum. I learned that fluorite is a hard mineral. It was a greenish color. I learned that mineral number 1 is calcite and mineral number 4 is fluorite. Mrs. Salvatore gave us a hint to figure out which mineral was which. She said that calcite is going to have more "yesses" than fluorite, quartz was the hardest of the four minerals we tested, and that gypsum was softer than fluorite. We used these clues to determine the names of the minerals.===== I wonder if there are harder minerals than quartz? It's cool how fluorite can be harder than clacite and calcite can be softer than fluorite. It's cool how we scratched the minerals to test for hardness. I wonder if there are other kinds of minerals? - Alina, Anastasia, Jahira, Joseph, Alejandro, Alexis - 309 

= Investigation 3.1 Calcite Quest =

===We had to put 25ml of vinegar into 5 vials and had to determine if the rock had the mineral calcite in it. If the rock had calcite in it, it will bubble continuously in the vinegar. The acid in the vinegar reacts to calcite so it can make it bubble. We used vinegar instead of real acid because acid is poisonous and it can burn holes through your skin. We put the mineral calcite in one of the vials to observe how it reacts to the vinegar so we can know what to look for if the rocks had calcite in them too. Some rocks didn't have calcite, like Basalt. Others like Marble and Limestone had calcite in them. Sandstone looked like it may have had calcite in it at first but when we went to gym and came back, there were no more bubbles fizzing in the vial. We only observed air bubbles. We wanted to determine for sure that there was calcite in Sandstone and Marble so we poured the vinegar from those vials into petri dishes to perform an evaporation test to see if the mineral calcite really was in the rock. We will observe the results tomorrow (11/26/08) and report back to the wiki. (Tyashia, Borris, Yareli, Kaylee, Manuel - 201)===

Room 104 has alot to say about the Calcite Quest Investigation!
Limestone looked light grey, orangish, whitish, sharp and rough. Sandstone is orangish, tan, brownish, rough and bumpy. Sandstone looked really small inside the water but it was much bigger outside the vial. Basalt is very black and it has a pointy tip. It had a little white but it was bumpy and sparkly. Marble is just like limestone but it's harder than limestone. It was shiny, had a little white, it had sparkles, and it was bumpy. It had a little black in it too. It had a rough texture and some of it was also smooth. (David, Reuben, Lizanny, Lisa, Kevin) Calcite was bubbling a lot and when we looked at it, the vial was leaking a little. The water is bubbling and its very dirty inside. The vinegar changed. It was clear and then it changed to grey. Basalt had bubbles on it when it was placed in the vinegar. They were air bubbles. The Limestone looked smoky and bubbly when it came up in the vinegar. It had calcite in it. Marble had calcite in it too. There were a lot of bubbles coming out of it. (Lisa, Lizanny, Jose, David, Alicia, Bounsavath) Marble has a lot of bubbles (Marcus) Comments about this Investigation: t was interesting because I could learn a lot out of it. - Robert You can see if any rock has clacite in it by putting it in vinegar and seeing if it bubbles. - Tyquasia, Rocio, Nyja, Kyaralee, Jaislene It was astonishing because we learned a lot about science and rocks and minerals. - David It was fun because other people can learn about minerals and rocks. -Rocio I learned that minerals can't break but rocks can. -Tyquasia It was interesting because we didn't know anhything about this before but then we got to do fun stuff and learned A LOT!! - Lizanny

Lesson # 4: Take It For Granite ** In this lesson, we had to determine which of our six earth materials was a rock, and which were minerals. ** We did a scratch test to determine the hardness of the materials. -Albert We made observations about the materials and wrote them down in the data section of our notebooks. -Alejandro We tested the granite for calcite, using the vinegar test. We discovered that granite does not contain the mineral, calcite, because it did not fizz and there was NO evidence left in the evaporating dish. I **claim** that granite contains at least four different minerals. My **evidence** is that when we observed the materials there were many similarities between the rock and the minerals, such as color, texture, and luster. -Rosalia I **claim** that granite does not contain calcite. My **evidence** was the vinegar test. -Kelly I **mica** is a very soft mineral. My **evidence** is that the layers peeled off easily and when we did the scratch test all of the tools scratched it, even my finger nail! - News from 307! We have been stretching our geology topic out and exploring the ROCK CYCLE--and the three families of rocks: igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary! Today, we did an experiment to talk about metamorphic rocks. We observed gumdrops and their properties and then smashed them altogether to make new "gumdrop" formations! We really understood that matamorphic means CHANGE and we imagined that the gumdrops were really rocks and minerals! Then, we took them apart to deconstruct the situation! We also made lots of predictions about why we think rocks metamorphicize. Next week we are going to explore sedimentary rocks!

We also had a one-day discussion about geology and history connections! We learned all about the history of STONEHENGE and MOUNT RUSHMORE! Geology is just everywhere!