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Pudong Grade 3: Rockin’ through the Rock Cycle

March 13, 2019

As part of their studies in Earth Science, third graders at Pudong campus have been exploring the Rock Cycle since the beginning of this semester. Students have learned about the three different types of rocks—igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary—and how each type of rock is formed. Through song lyrics, students committed the new information to their memories.

To further their learning, students were tasked with creating 3-D “tri-oramas” to show the three different types of rocks and their definitions. Each student transformed their standard picture, label, and definition page into a 3-D note display.

Once students grasped the foundational knowledge of the types of rocks, they put on their scientist lab coats and became geologists! Students used broken crayons as stand-ins for igneous rocks. They scraped the crayons to create “sediment.” While students scraped the crayons, they discussed that in real life, the wind and water would be causing these changes to the rocks. The next step was to create a sedimentary rock! Students compressed their newly created sediment into layers, discussing that this would normally take several hundreds of years. After students created their sedimentary rocks, they used pressure and heat (from an iron) to change their sedimentary rocks into metamorphic rocks. The high heat and pressure caused the sedimentary rocks to become metamorphic rocks.

This rock cycle process was exactly the hands-on experimenting that the kids needed to “cement” the learning into their brains!

(Written by Melanie Cherry Pictures by Melanie Cherry)