4^th Grade Explore

VOLCANOES & ROCKS!

The 4^th graders have been learning about what makes up our Earth. Earthquakes, volcanoes, and rock types are just some of the natural disasters or phenomena that occur on our Earth.

VOLCANOES

We learned the different parts of a volcano and what causes this violent eruptions. We looked at a model volcano and observed what happens when it explodes! It wasn’t real magma of course, just baking soda, red food coloring, and vinegar. We also used Google Earth to map the coordinates of volcanoes around the world. We learned that most of the volcanoes in the world are found near the Pacific Ocean in what is known as the “Ring of Fire”….and no, not the Johnny Cash song!

We took advantage of a warm day in February and erupted our volcano outside!

ROCKS
Did you know that there are three different types of rocks? Igneous rocks are formed from cooled magma, sedimentary rocks are formed from layers of sediment, and metamorphic rocks are formed from extreme heat and pressure. The 4^th graders excavated sites to find what “rocks and minerals” they could find – except their excavation sites were chocolate chip cookies! They had to carefully excavate the chocolate chips without break them. We found out just how difficult it is for scientists to excavate rocks, minerals, and fossils without damaging them.

We also learned that there are three characteristics for classifying minerals – luster (shininess), hardness, and color. We looked at different minerals and observed the different characteristics.

Here is a slideshow of us working on our unit portfolios:

Click here to visit our Internet resources page about natural disasters

Click here to visit our Internet resources page about types of rocks

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