Monday 18 March 2024

'Ocean acidification – The other carbon dioxide problem

The ELI team is now publishing three more activities which will be useful when teaching climate change. The first is: 'Ocean acidification – The other CO2 problem; see how acidified water affects calcareous marine organisms'.

 

A demonstration, involving blowing into neutral water to produce a weak acid. Powdered seashells are added and react with the acid, as a quick-acting laboratory example of how an acidifying ocean affects the life of many marine organisms.

Other related activities can be found in 'Climate change' in the 'Resources and Environment' category.
 

Monday 11 March 2024

Investigation into scratches on rocks caused by ice

'Ice-thickness from scratch: visualising past processes by calculation
Modelling glacial striation-formation by calculation thinking through the assumptions'.

This ELI involves a field simulation of the scratching of striations on bedrock by the debris frozen into an ice sheet, used to approximately calculate the thickness of the ice sheet and to discuss the assumptions made. The activity has been devised to enable pupils to gain a deeper understanding of the glacial processes which erode bedrock surfaces.

Related activities can be found in 'Sedimentary processes' in the Earth energy/processes category.

Monday 4 March 2024

Investigating and understanding spectacular landforms

The new ELI today is another in our very popular 'Picturing . . .' series - 'Picturing Landforms -1; visualise and draw landforms from a verbal description'.

Pupils learn to describe spectacular and popular landforms sufficiently accurately that they can be drawn by someone else. This can lead to an in-depth understanding of the particular landform.

Other activities in the series can be seen in the 'Picturing . . .' table.

Monday 26 February 2024

Simple Rock Identification

'Rock detective – rocky clues to the past; investigating your local rocks to find out how they formed'.

 

This activity is all about sorting rocks according to their properties, which depend upon how they were formed. Pupils use the characteristic properties of a set of rocks to sort them into sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rock groups. This works reasonably well for most rocks, but there are exceptions which are explained in the activity.

Other ELIs about rocks can be found in the Rocks section of Earth Materials.

Monday 19 February 2024

Teaching geology to students with visual impairment (VI)

Our new ELI today is the third in a series of 'Teaching geology to students with visual impairment (VI) - modifying geological materials for students who cannot see'.

Using the three ELI activities in this series, pupils with visual impairments can actively participate in learning geology. They can engage with real geological materials used so frequently when teaching the subject. They can also share in learning, using these models alongside visually acute students.

The other activities in the series are in the Cross Category topics lists.


Monday 12 February 2024

How pure are limestones and calcium carbonate minerals?

Keeping our theme of limestone - - '‘I’m pure calcium carbonate’ – the calcium carbonate question; a discussion focussed on common misconceptions about calcium carbonate'.

 
 
This activity helps pupils to understand the likely purity of minerals and rocks. Rocks are normally less pure than minerals.
There are many ELIs about minerals and about rocks.


Monday 5 February 2024

Lime kilns and limelight

New ELI today is 'Make a mini lime kiln and discover limelight; investigating the results of heating limestone.'

This ELI is a pupil activity to decompose limestone by heat and to discuss the uses of the resulting quicklime. It's a good activity for science, geography or environmental science classes.

Click on Engineering and Industrial Geology for related activities.