MYSTERY SOIL: Earth Science

Studying soil formation and rocks and minerals in your class? Karen Raber teaches sixth grade science at Northwestern Middle School in West Salem, Ohio. She attended an OOGEEP teacher workshop in July and received classroom supplies and lesson plans to use with her students. Here’s how she’s incorporated some of them in these topic areas:

Each student began learning about earth science by selecting a career to research from the OOGEEP career site. The students were surprised at how many different types of careers could be pursued in the Oil and Gas industry. Mrs. Raber read a geologic time article to the students and they drew explanatory pictures of each of the geologic ages. The students enjoyed this activity because it provided a visual about the earth’s development at a level they understood. Mrs. Raber followed this activity with a Timeline activity of the Major Event’s in Earth’s History in a 50-feet comparison. The students realized that a vast amount of important history occurred in a compressed area. Several weeks after this activity the students were asked to recreate it and they said “I remember—the activity where we were all scrunched together!”

The main point of this lesson was for the students to make their own soil and grow plants. As the students learned about soil formation, they completed an activity of the different layers of the earth. They had fun making a six-foot paper pie diagram model of the earth’s layers, and they labelled the elements that could be found in each layer. Each of Mrs. Raber’s six classes made a ‘piece of the pie’ which was connected together and shared in the room for the entire lesson. As students learned new information they wrote on their pie diagram.

The students studied mineralogy, the building blocks of rocks, using the supplies provided by OOGEEP. They enjoyed the hands-on learning. They studied the Mohs scale and predicted sample names, and they really wanted to test diamonds. The students looked at specific gravity and completed calculations for several samples. They tried to identify minerals based on their streak, luster, color, and clarity and were excited to learn if they had predicted correctly. They learned that color was the least effective way to identify a mineral. The students competed in a contest to define minerals by their properties using the graphic organizer. Due to the fact that March Madness Basketball was beginning, the students completed a Sweet 16 Mineral Bracket and had fun searching for the answers in a timed activity.

The students studied the Rock Cycle and completed several activities to understand the differences between the types of rocks and how they were formed. They read several maps of Ohio and learned about bedrock, environmental conditions, the location of oil and gas, glacier movement, and the drifting of the continents. They were surprised to learn that Ohio was under water at one time.

The students are currently growing plants in the mystery soil. They were amazed that they could make nutrient-rich soil from a bunch of rocks and minerals. The students are still learning and really enjoyed using the educational materials provided by OOGEEP. Next year Mrs. Raber would like to invite a spokesperson to share more in-depth learning with the students.