Beginning to identify minerals

The ELI 'Be a mineral expert 1; beginning to identify minerals' introduces colour, habit, lustre and cleavage as ways of identifying one mineral from another. The activity uses simple visual tests to identify a set of ‘unknown’ minerals. This is the first in a series of activities on minerals which can be used in a variety of lessons, ranging from the nature of minerals as the ‘building blocks’ of rocks to the origins and recycling of useful elements in the Earth.
Many more activities about minerals and rocks can be found on our website.