step into my classroom: earth science

To kick off our study of the rock cycle, my earth science class did an experiment with crayons.

We started with a solid crayon, representing igneous rocks (formed by magma or lava). By scraping the crayon with a knife, we modeled weathering and erosion and created a pile of crayon shavings representing sediments.

Next we mashed together the crayon shavings to make a sedimentary rock.

From there, we partially melted the mashed sedimentary rock to represent the formation of a metamorphic rock (heat and pressure). Sadly I didn't get any pictures beyond this point because I had to help the students with their boiling water! It's really too bad, because it looked really cool when the colors started swirling together.

Finally, we completely melted the wax to show how an igneous rock forms (from magma or lava).