Monday, 16 June 2025

How do we know the actual age of rocks?

The ELI today continues our theme of geological (deep) time  with 'But how old is it? Investigating radioactive dating of rocks and minerals'.


This activity investigates how radioactive (radiometric) or absolute dating of rocks and minerals works.

Related activities can be found in our Geological Time category - Visualising deep time.

Monday, 9 June 2025

Helping to understand geological time

Continuing our theme of geological time, the ELI today is 'The origin of the Earth – at arm’s length: the age of the Earth - with a good stretch of imagination.'


This activity teaches the great length of geological time in a fun way. It could be used to reinforce other methods of helping pupils to understand the concept of “deep time”, e.g. during a quick-fire revision session.

Related activities can be found in our Visualising Deep time, Geological Time category.

Monday, 2 June 2025

For the next few weeks, we will be considering geological time. The ELI today is 'The toilet roll of time; make a geological timeline to take home'.


This activity has been devised to address the common lack of knowledge about geological time. Research has shown that many people have no idea of the great length of geological time nor of the order of the key events during the geological history of the Earth.

Related activities can be found in our Geological Time category, Visualising deep time.

Monday, 26 May 2025

Why certain minerals are of such importance to the USA

Our new ELI today is the 9th in our Essential Minerals series - 'Essential Minerals for the Green Revolution – 9 Critical Minerals for the USA'

This Earthlearningidea defines the purpose of a national critical minerals list for the current and future needs of the USA’s industries and technology. This activity could form an extension of the ELI series on metal ores which are essential for the “new” technologies as well as the growth of existing industries.

Related activities can be found in our Minerals category.

Monday, 19 May 2025

Rare earths - vital components in modern technology

We continue our theme of Essential Minerals for the Green Revolution with 'Rare Earth Elements; vital components in modern technology'.

This activity could be used in a lesson on the need to identify and exploit rare earth minerals in vital applications in many different fields, ranging from optics to energy saving devices and medical equipment. They are particularly important as catalysts in industrial processes and in the manufacture of strong magnets.

Other related activities can be found in our Minerals category.

Monday, 12 May 2025

Our ELI today is 'Essential Minerals for the Green Revolution – 6 “The Three Ts”; Tin, Tungsten and Tantalum'.

This ELI involves contrasting good practice in extracting essential minerals with illegal mining. It includes a brief survey of world production of the “Three Ts”.

Related activities can be found in our Minerals and Mining and the Green Revolution            categories.

Monday, 5 May 2025

Fun way to demonstrate sea floor spreading and magnetic stripes

We thought you would enjoy a fun activity as we end our magnetism and plate tectonics series.  'Hands on magnetic stripes; demonstrating how oceanic ridge magnetic stripes form, with several pairs of hands'.


This activity involves a class demonstration of how ocean floor magnetic stripes form, using the hands of pupils. It usually ends with the 'ridge' collapsing and much laughter.

Related activities can be found in our Plate tectonics and Magnetism categories.