Methods II: Week 10

What did we do in lab this week?

This week in lab, we worked through how we can represent the rock cycle with Starbursts. We used the candies and a torch to create the different kinds of rocks, by melting and molding them together and allowing them to cool. We did this to make igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rock. We also talked about convection currents and how they cause plate tectonics. 



What was the big question?
The big question was, what is a rock, and how can we represent the 3 kinds?

What did we learn in Thursday's discussion?
We focused a lot on earthquakes, volcanoes, and the rock cycle. We talked about the different interactions of plate tectonics that cause different landforms. Divergent plates can form ridges, like the mid ocean Atlantic ridge. Converging plates can form a mountain or a trench (continental v continental is mountain, oceanic v continental is trench). A transform boundary is like sliding plates and causes an earthquake or tsunami (if in water). 
We also talked about the 3 kinds of rock: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. 

This week's reading: Chapter 17: Rocks and the Rock Cycle

- I learned: The first type of rock was igneous rock because the early earth was made of liquid but cooled to be rock, which is igneous. 

- I found helpful: the graphic that shows the different interactions between the rocks and the changes they can go through, along with the color coding of all the arrows. 

- I need more info on: There are so many ways that rocks can be changed into different kinds of rock by heat, pressure, weathering, and erosion. I think I need more practice on differentiating how those processes influence the rock into becoming a different kind of rock.

My questions/comments/concerns: 
none 

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