FREE PRIMARY SCIENCE · Years 5–6 (challenge)
Challenge: Rock cycle detectives
How can a rock’s appearance tell the story of how it formed, and how long that took?
An extension topic. Builds on: Changing Earth and sky (Years 5–6), where students studied weathering, erosion and deposition. Lesson 1 is a ‘rock CSI’ task: use clues such as crystals, layers and fossils to work out how eight rocks formed. Lesson 2 builds a timeline to grasp how slow and how fast Earth processes are. Lesson 3 models the whole rock cycle with crayon shavings. Lessons 1 and 2 are iPad-only. Previews Year 8 AC9S8U04.
3 free lessons · Australian Curriculum v9
Lessons in this topic
Each lesson includes a teacher plan and activities. Check its materials label before teaching.
Rock CSI: read a rock’s life story
What clues in a rock tell us how it formed?
Open free interactive lesson →How long is a long time?
Which Earth processes take minutes, and which take millions of years?
Open free interactive lesson →The crayon rock cycle
How can crayons model the way rocks change from one type to another?
Open free interactive lesson →
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