Summary
In this lesson, students will learn about the different stages in which a rock can exist due to natural causes or human impact. Students will construct models that illustrate how biochemical processes cycle through living and nonliving organisms.
Essential Question(s)
How do Earth’s materials cycle through living and nonliving components?
Snapshot
Engage
Students justify and evaluate preconceived notions about rocks and watch a clip of a natural disaster caused by rock transformation.
Explore
Students investigate different stresses that affect rock formation.
Explain
Students read an article to help construct explanations for the flow of the rock cycle.
Extend
In small groups, students research and create a model that shows the flow of different matter into and out of living and nonliving parts of the ecosystem.
Evaluate
Students assess and gather data from one another's work and use the information to answer the lesson’s essential question.
Materials
Lesson Slides (attached)
You’re Stressing Me Out Lab Instructions (attached, one per student)
You’re Stressing Me Out Lab Handout (attached, one per student)
Rock Cycle handout (attached, one per student)
Biochemical Cycle handout (attached, one per student)
Regular-size bars of Ivory soap (one per student)
Copy paper (one sheet per group of three students)
Glue sticks (one per group)
Chalk (one set per group)
Butcher paper (optional, one sheet per group)
Markers (optional, one set per group)
Engage
20 Minute(s)
Use the attached Lesson Slides to follow along with the lesson. Display slide 3 and read aloud the essential question:
How do Earth’s materials cycle through living and nonliving components?
Display slide 4 and share the lesson objectives.
Display slide 5. Invite students to participate in an Always, Sometimes or Never True activity. As you go through each statement on slides 6-13, have students give a thumbs up for always, thumbs to the side for sometimes, or thumbs down for never. Be sure to ask each question separately and call on random students to give their opinions on the statement.
All rocks are hard.
Rocks can change form.
Rocks make up the entire Earth.
All rocks are the same.
It’s hard to tell how rocks originated.
Rocks and minerals are the same thing.
Humans are the cause of rock formations.
Minerals are not important to my life.
After wrapping up the Always, Sometimes, or Never True activity, show one or both video clips about sinkholes that have occurred in Oklahoma.
Clip 1 (slide 14): “Massive Oklahoma Sinkhole appears overnight”
Clip 2 (slide 15): “Weatherford building about to be swallowed by sinkhole”
Write down any questions that students have after watching the clips.
Explore
15 Minute(s)
Gather the supplies for the lab and go to slide 16. Pass out copies of the You’re Stressing Me Out Lab Instructions and the You’re Stressing Me Out Lab Handout. Read the introduction aloud to review the three types of stressors that students will demonstrate.
Organize students into groups of three and give each group a bar of soap. Tell students that each group member will demonstrate one of the three types of stressors. Before each demonstration, ask students how they can go about showing this particular stressor. After each demonstration, have students record their observations on their lab handouts. Move around the room to monitor students and clear up any potential misconceptions.
At the end of the activity, have students use compressional stress to take the small soap remains that they have left and smash them together. Tell students that this is how sedimentary rocks are formed.
Explain
40 Minute(s)
Go to slide 17 and ask students to read one of the following articles:
Generation Genius’s “Read About Rocks, Minerals & The Rock Cycle”
Soft Schools’ “The Rock Cycle”
Display slide 18 and organize students into new groups of three. Pass out copies of the Rock Cycle handout to each student and one blank sheet of copy paper and a glue stick to each group. Ask students within each group to each pick a different stage of the rock cycle: igneous, sedimentary, or metamorphic.
Have students follow the directions on the handout to select and illustrate a type of rock that exists at their chosen stage and explain which processes must have occurred for the rock to be at that stage.
After students have completed the assignment, have group members arrange and attach their rocks around the outer edge of the copy paper in the correct order of the rock cycle. Ask them to label each component of the cycle and draw arrows showing the direction in which it moves.
Extend
60 Minute(s)
Go to slide 20 and pass out copies of the Biochemical Cycle handout. Organize students into groups of four. Tell them that now they will learn about some essential materials that living and nonliving factors cycle through the Earth. Assign each group one of the biochemical cycles: water, carbon, or nitrogen.
Ask students to research facts about at least three different stages of each cycle and what drives the movement to each part of the cycle. Make sure students cite where they are getting the information about biochemical cycles. Emphasize the importance of students working together to research and delegate tasks for illustrating the cycle. Since this activity moves outside, be sure to constantly circle and monitor the students’ progress.
Once they have finished their research, take students outside. Provide each group with a set of chalk and ask them to draw their cycles on the pavement.
Evaluate
15 Minute(s)
Move to slide 21 and direct students to the second page of the Biochemical Cycles handout. Have students complete a Gallery Walk to view the other groups’ cycles. Ask them to gather data on the stages each group chose to illustrate and take notes on their handouts. They should then evaluate this data and use the findings to draft an answer to the essential question:
How do Earth’s materials cycle through living and nonliving components?
Remind students to use vocabulary that they learned in this lesson to respond to the essential question.
Resources
EmilyB. (2012, October 29). We will rock you! (The rock cycle) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r68iEwYdbh4
Generation Genius. (2020, August 31). Read about rocks & minerals: Science for grades 6-8. https://www.generationgenius.com/rocks-and-minerals-reading-material-grades-6-8/
KOCO TV. (2015, June 05). Weatherford building about to be swallowed by sinkhole [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCUthn8Z_KY&ab_channel=KOCO5News
K20 Center. (n.d.). Always, sometimes, or never true. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/145
K20 Center. (n.d.). Gallery walk/carousel. Strategies.https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/118
K20 Center. (n.d.). R.E.R.U.N. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/819
Khan Academy. (n.d.). Intro to biogeochemical cycles. https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/ecology/biogeochemical-cycles/a/introduction-to-biogeochemical-cycles
NBCUniversal News Group.
(2016, Dec 5). NBC News - Breaking News & Top Stories - Latest World, US & Local News. [Online image]. http://media4.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2016_49/1821236/sink_hole_ea406342d04bed2983c95f1e3f461e53.nbcnews-fp-400-280.jpg
ParrMr. (2011, April 3). Rock cycle song [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53lMdHzvGCQ
Sister Christian. (2011, November 30). Massive Oklahoma sinkhole appears overnight [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz6EFS1fu1A
Soft Schools. (n.d.). The rock cycle. https://softschools.com/language_arts/reading_comprehension/science/493/the_rock_cycle/
TeachEngineering. (2021, January 23). Soapy stress activity. https://www.teachengineering.org/activities/view/cub_rock_lesson01_activity1
