Explore Rocks and Minerals!: 25 Great Projects, Activities, Experiements (Explore Your World)
This offering from the Explore Your World series introduces budding geologists to basic information about rocks and minerals. The authors examine the earth; minerals and crystals; igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks; and fossils. For each topic, they present a brief discussion, define technical terms, offer sidebars with intriguing details (and jokes), and provide several projects that demonstrate key concepts introduced in the text. Activities include creating salt-crystal models, Epsom salt stalactites, and an edible model of the earth and its layers. Stone’s black-and-white illustrations—especially the cartoon mole sporting a miner’s hat who guides readers through the text—help to clarify technical matters and elucidate steps in the projects. Although the main text sometimes gets lost among the many sidebars, the suggested activities are well chosen, carefully explained, and require easily accessible household items. Appended with the usual back matter, this is similar in scope to Cindy Blobaum’s Geology Rocks! (1999) and makes a good choice for classroom science units. Grades 3-6. --Kay Weisman