Why do igneous rocks have different crystal sizes?

This activity simulates crystallisation from a melt at different rates of cooling of Salol (phenyl salicylate). It can be included in lessons on the rock cycle to model the cooling and crystallisation of magma to form igneous rocks. We have just added some video clips which show crystallisation on room temperature, cold and warm microscope slides.
These video clips are published with permission from the Earth Science Education Unit which provides no fee Earth science/Geology CPD to teachers and teacher trainees across England, Scotland and Wales, through workshops for schools, teacher meetings and teacher education institutions/organisations.





Click HERE to watch the video clips

Be a mineral expert - beginning to identify minerals

'Be a mineral expert - 1; beginning to identify minerals'. This is the first of a series of mineral identification activities. Here pupils base their identification just on the properties they can see, i.e. colour, crystal habit (shape and proportion), lustre (reflection of light) and cleavage (regular breakage pattern).
This series of activities on minerals 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. Search the website for similar activities.

'Continental drift' to 'Plate tectonics'

'Wegener's 'Continental drift' meets Wilson's 'Plate tectonics'. This is an activity to show how Wegener's continental drift evidence matches up with evidence for plate tectonics. Pupils can sort out which parts of the evidence we now have for plate tectonics, Alfred Wegener knew about in the 1920s.

You can find lots more ideas for teaching this topic on the ELI website in Teaching strategies.

NEW Earth Science activities website

The Earthlearningidea team is pleased to announce the launch of a new, related website - Earth Science Activities and Demonstrations. Mike Tuke's activities and demonstrations provide a thousand and one ideas for teaching Geology: visual aids, demonstrations, short activities, paper exercises and experiments.

Click here for other websites listed on the Earthlearningidea site.

Plate tectonics through the window

Have you tried the ELI, 'Plate tectonics through the window'? What might you see through a window or porthole at an active plate margin? What might you hear? What might you sense? What might you feel?
For your pupils, imagining a plate margin involves bridging between an understanding of plate tectonic activity and its likely effects on people in the region.
This is one of many plate tectonics activities that are free to download from our website.

Gold prospectors

The new Earthlearningidea today is 'Gold prospectors; panning for 'gold' in river sediment'. This activity investigates how prospectors use the property of density to search for gold in river sediments.
Other activities related to this one are listed on the home page of our website.
Did you know you can search for almost any Earth-related topic by searching the activities, topics or categories on our website?

Have you tried plate-riding?

A very popular Earthlearningidea activity is plate riding; it involves role-play plate-surfing and asks: 'How is the plate you live on moving now?'
Pretend you are balancing on a surfboard. Ask the students:
• “What am I doing?” Plate-riding or plate-surfing.
• “How fast am I going?” As fast as our fingernails grow, several centimetres per year.
• “In which direction am I travelling?” Towards the direction in which the plate is moving.
• “What is happening behind me?” New plate material is being formed, probably at an oceanic ridge.
• “What is happening in front of me?” You are probably heading towards a subduction zone,
“How can I tell I’m moving?” This is shown by evidence from: GPS measurements over several years; magnetic ocean floor stripes; the age of ocean floor sediments; and the lines of volcanoes produced at volcanic ‘hot spots’ like Hawaii.
Lots of Earth-related activities are FREE to download from our website.