Rock Cycle unit

This was part of the lithosphere unit in our science lessons this year, as we worked our way through earth science. We tried several different sugar cube rock cycle lessons before we finally found a rock cycle lesson that worked.

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Sugar Cube rock cycle lesson supplies

sugar cubes, Apologia Earth Science or CKE Earth and Space book

Our failed rock cycle lesson

In our CKE Earth and Space book, they’ve got a recipe for making rock cycle cookies.  I was pretty excited and got out all the stuff, started the lesson, and then I got to the step where you’re supposed to caramelize the sugar.  I didn’t really know what that was, but I tried and got brown slightly burned sugar lumps.

At this point for the safety of the kids, I decided to kick them out of the house because I was starting to mutter under my breath at the pan.  Pushing on and I decided to try adding the cream to make the caramel sauce.  I ended up with lumpy cream that ended up burning in the pan.

 Follow Ticia Adventures in Mommydom’s board Earth Science for kids on Pinterest.

So I headed to pinterest to see what I had stashed away there and checked out my earth science ideas for kids post.  I came up with several great ideas:

• Crayon rock cycle lesson
• Sugar cube rock cycle lesson
• Cookie rock cycle lesson

Sugar Cube rock cycle lesson

Out of all of those I thought the sugar cube rock cycle lesson looked most likely to achieve.  Especially since I had large numbers of sugar cubes.  There was a miscommunication on our sugar cube supply and Jeff bought 2 boxes after I’d bought 2 boxes, so we have 4 boxes of sugar cubes.  FOUR boxes.

First, we took our sugar cube and dropped water on it.  We watched as the sugar cube dissolved carrying the solvents downstream and creating deposits that will make new rocks someday, this is how sedimentary rocks are created.

Then we melted our sugar cube, and this time because I learned from my mistakes and stirred it constantly.  The kiddos were quite amazed at the sugar cube melting (it did leave a rather nasty black mark on the pan, but that’s slowly coming out).  This represents the metamorphic changes a rock goes through.

I didn’t get a picture of it, but as it solidified and become hard that would show it cooling and becoming like an igneous rock.  Over at All Things Beautiful (the link up at the top for Sugar Cube Rock cycle) she also has a fudge rock cycle that looked delicious, but given my bad luck with the other versions I didn’t want to try it right then.

Resources used for the Rock Cycle Unit

• Identifying rocks printable
• Edible Rock Cycle unit
• Crayon Rock Cycle unit
• Sugar cube rock cycle
• Play dough rock cycle
• Starburst Rock Cycle