Monday 29 July 2013

Rocks from the big screen

Today's new Earthlearningidea involves indoor preparation for outdoor field work, 'Rocks from the big screen'. Use the suggestions in this activity to prepare pupils for an outdoor visit to a rock exposure in your own locality. If projection equipment and a large screen are available, project a photograph of a rock face (as shown above, or use one of your own). Ask pupils to pretend that they are looking at the actual rock face. Place some appropriate rock specimens on the floor below the screen, as though they had fallen from the rock face. The pupils now identify the pieces of rock, draw a scaled diagram (field sketch) of the photo and then work out the geological history.
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2 comments:

PhysicsHippie said...

My structural geology professor did something similar to this when our field trip got re-scheduled because of rain for a second time near the end of the semester! It wasn't quite like seeing the real thing, but talking with her past students, we still really understood the important concepts expected for the field day :)

Hong said...

Fantastic!