Demonstrate sink hole processes in action

Have you tried 'Sink hole!'? This ELI is a classroom demonstration of sink hole processes and their effects.

Sink holes commonly form over limestone bedrock, but also develop where the underlying materials are even more soluble, such as rock salt and gypsum deposits. This classroom activity models the dissolving of underground materials and the impacts this can have at the surface.
Many more good teaching ideas on a wide variety of topics can be found on the website.

Rock Explorers for young children

The new ELI today is part of our series ELI Early years, 'Rock Explorers; putting rocks into families'. As Rock Explorers, pupils investigate a variety of rocks and sort them into groups. The activity includes opportunities for literacy, numeracy and art.

You could ask the pupils how they think the rocks might be used, e.g. the White family might be used to decorate buildings, the Pink family could be used in jewellery.
Other activities written specially for young children can be found on the website; ELI Early years.

Magnetic Earth and Toilet roll of time

We have added a suggestion to our Magnetic Earth activity. This idea uses a sponge ball globe instead of Plasticine.

Click here to see the original Earthlearningidea.

We have also added some photos to the photo gallery on the website of students in Slovakia trying out the 'Toilet roll of time'.

Clues in sediment to ancient environments

The new ELI today is 'What was it like to be there? – clues in sediment which bring an environment to life' Pupils are asked to imagine themselves to be there at the time when the sediments at the sedimentary exposure (or in the photographs provided) were forming, and to think what the conditions would have been like at the time.

Many more activities related to working out past environments can be found on the ELI website.

Earthlearningidea translations into Slovak and a popular ELI in April

The ELI team is delighted to welcome translations into Slovak thanks to Peter Fararik and the Lepšia geografia (Better geography) project.
Three activities have been translated so far and many more will soon be published.

A popular ELI activity in April was 'Earthquake through the window - what would you see, what would you feel? Asking pupils to picture for themselves what an earthquake through the window might look like'
If an earthquake struck now:
• What would you see through the window/   doorway?
• What would be happening to the ground?
• What would be happening to the buildings and trees?
• What would the people be doing?
• What would it be like inside this building?
• How would you be feeling?
• What would you do? What should you tell your friends to do?
• What might have caused an earthquake like this?
• Can we tell when earthquakes like these are coming?