Earth to Class

Paul R. Nevergold

[ESPRIT 10/10/06]

Dear Melisa et al.,

I used to play a game with the students challenging them to think of something other than air on this planet that I could not trace back to rock and minerals. No one was ever able to stump me. Kids seemed to get a kick out of the challenge.

Metals are easy - Iron from iron ore etc. (The strangest metal source is magnesium which is from sea salt but then the elements in sea salt were eroded from rock.)

Plastics - petroleum which means literally rock oil.

Glass and ceramics - sand and other silicates.

Wood products - Wood and paper are from trees which grow in soil which is basically weathered rock.

Meat of any kind - cows eat grain and grass which grows in soil which is weathered rock

Ideas - ideas are generated in your brain which is part of your body which eats vegetables and meat etc., etc., etc.

Remember, ice is a mineral, glacial ice a rock and water is found in rock.

Based on this idea, maybe you could give them lists of everyday things and ask them to trace the materials back to rock as specifically as possible. Like the components of a cell phone - plastic, leather case, all the metals, whatever the screen is made of.

They could make posters showing the route of common everyday materials from rock to your table. Our very bodies are a bag of perambulating rock dust soup. Traced further back, we are literally star dust.

http://www.webelements.com/webelements/scholar/index.html has the periodic table of elements. Click on and element an a page tells you about the element, uses and sources.

I am sure other creative minds on this listserve will build on this or have other ideas.