Obsidian, quartz and sharks’ teeth
May 28, 2008
By Laura Geggel
The television hit “Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?” could be changed to the second-grade level, especially if the questions cover geology.
After a hands-on geology workshop last week, many of North Bend Elementary’s second-grade students are now able to identify glassy mica and explain how petrified wood forms.
“Who can tell me the difference between a rock and a mineral?” asked Kay Hibler, a former teacher at North Bend and Snoqualmie elementary schools, who goes by Professor Kay-OS (chaos). Hibler travels to classrooms to educate students about minerals, fossils and the three types of rocks: metamorphic, sedimentary and igneous, otherwise known as volcanic.
Students eagerly raised their hands, saying that rocks were made of minerals.
“It reminds me of cookies - my favorite is a chocolate chip,” said Hibler. “The ingredients that go into a cookie are like minerals in a rock.”
She passed out pyrite pieces and asked students to study them.
“We’re going to talk about how a geologist would test a mineral,” Hibler said, teaching the children how to examine the sample’s luster and color. Students rubbed the pyrite against a penny, nail and glass jar to determine the mineral’s hardness factor.
On a scale of one to 10, a 10 being the hardest mineral, a diamond pyrite is about a 6.5.
“This is harder than nails,” Hibler said.
After several guesses, students identified the mineral as fool’s gold.
“Let’s say you’re hiking up Mount Si and you see a shiny rock. You might think, ‘I’m rich!’” said Hibler.
“But we know that gold is a real soft mineral, so if you do a scratch test, it probably wouldn’t scratch glass.
“You’re no fool because you know how to tell fool’s gold from real gold.”
Third-grade students used to study geology, until the subject transitioned to second-grade curriculum two years ago. Hibler used to teach her workshop to third-graders but said that second-graders are just as attentive.
“Kay said she had fifth-graders coming up to her and remembering names of minerals, the shininess of obsidian and the softness of talc,” said Kate Christenson, a second-grade teacher at North Bend
Elementary, who has a background in geology. “Even as adults, if someone was able to tell you something on a worksheet - if you can touch it and feel it, you remember it better.”
Christenson wrote an $830 grant to the North Bend Elementary PTSA to pay for a two-hour session with Hibler for each second-grade class. The money pays for the rock, mineral and fossil samples as well as for Hibler’s time and transportation.
After examining the next mineral - mica - which peels into thin layers, students learned that mica used to be used as windows in old ovens because it doesn’t react with heat. Talc, a mineral with a hardness factor of one, crumbled in their fingers.
“It kind of looks like chocolate chip mint ice cream,” said one boy, identifying talc’s greenish color.
Each child created a geological treasure box made from recycled egg cartons. They quickly filled the egg-holders with limestone, coal and pumice specimens. The different shark tooth fossils commanded their entire attention as students tried to match the teeth to the illustrations on a handout.
Second-grader Dayna McFadden found she had a mackerel shark’s tooth.
Her classmate, Taylor Dilley, said she liked granite the best because it “has all kinds of different colors.”
“I like pyrite,” said Myah Wargi. “It’s a pretty color and it looks like real gold but it’s not.”
“We’ve been learning a lot about how rocks form,” said Scappucci. “They really retained the information.”
Reporter Laura Geggel can be reached at 392-6434 x221 or lgeggel@snovalleystar.com.
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