Elementary School Lessons About Fossils and Rocks

The American Geosciences Institute produces K-5 GeoSource which is a site that hosts lesson plans and other educational resources for teachers. K-5 GeoSource has a very Web 1.0 look to it, but if you do a little digging you'll find some helpful materials. A few of the resources that I looked at were this free chart about types of rocks (link opens PDF), a science fair project guide, and a short Earth scientist career guide.

Applications for Education
As I mentioned above, K-5 GeoSource isn't the fanciest site you'll find on the web and it lacks any kind of interactive element for students. If you just need to find some ideas to use in your classroom, K-5 GeoSource could be worth bookmarking. The most useful aspect of the site might be the science fair project guide that you and your students could work through to plan a hands-on Earth science project.

The BBC Teaches Kids About Rocks

Rocks & Weathering is a great animated site produced by the BBC. The site using interactive animations to teach students all about rocks. The site illustrates and explains how sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks form. In each stage of the site, students can "create" rocks and "inspect" rocks with a virtual magnifying glass. Students "create" rocks by compacting sediment or by adding water to cool lava. After creating rocks, students can then "destroy" rocks by adding elements of weather.

Applications for Education
Rocks & Weathering looks like it could be a great site as part of an elementary school science lesson. I wouldn't use it as a replacement for all of the materials you currently use to teach about rock formation, but it certainly is worth using as a supplemental resource. The site is equally well suited to use on a touch screen/ interactive whiteboard or a standard computer screen with a mouse.

Thanks to Kelly Tenkely for sharing this great resource on her blog last month.