Objective Students will have an understanding of how rocks change due to weathering.

Objective

Students will have an understanding of how rocks change due to weathering.

Review

What are some ways that rocks can break down?

If you said water, wind, and other ways you correct!

What type of rock bits can rocks break into?

If you said other rocks, pebbles, sand, silt, and clay your correct!

Weathering Review

• weathering – a processes at or near Earth’s surface that cause rocks and minerals to break down. These pieces do not move to a new location, they simply break down, but stay next to one another.  

• A large chunk of rock many hundreds of feet long is broken down into smaller and smaller pieces, until finally there are many tens of thousands of small rocks. Often rocks are broken down so much that they become dirt.

How Rocks Change Rocks can change by

Today you will learn more about the other ways rocks can show weathering.

WIND

OTHER WAYS WATER

Types of Weathering

You already know rocks breakdown by wind and water. Rocks can also break down by gravity and living things.

Gravity

One way weathering can happen is by avalanches. A mass of snow, ice, and rocks falling rapidly down a mountainside.

Rocks fall with the snow and land on bottom.

Gravity

Another way is by landslides. Landslides take place when dirt, pebbles, rocks and boulders slide down a slope together.

Sometimes these landslides are small, and hardly noticeable. Other times however, they can be big, involving the entire side of a mountain. 

Living Things

Plant Growth: Roots of trees and other plants grow in the cracks of rocks and pry them apart.

Perhaps you have seen this on sidewalks?

Living Things

Animal Actions: Animals dig in the soil and loosen and break apart rocks. A large number of animals make tunnels through hard rock and under the ground. 

Living Things

Animal Actions: Even earthworms make tunnels in the ground which leads to breakdown of stones and rocks over a period of time. 

Surface rocks also get crushed when animals tread/walk on them 

oops!

Review

What are the 4 types of weathering wind water gravity living things

A large rock can be broken into smaller pieces. What are the smaller bits. rock pebble sand silt clay

Soap Rocks Experiment

Draw the picture of the soap bar on a piece of paper.

The bar of soap represents a rock and the water represents the ocean waves.

before weathering

after weathering

Write a hypothesis about what will happen to the rock.

hypothesis

Soap Rocks Experimentbefore

weatheringafter

weathering

Watch as the waves move the rock. What is happening to the rock?

If you said weathering by water you are correct. The soap is being carried by the water and hitting other rock causing the rock to change its form.

If you said erosion you are also correct. The water is moving the rock around and around. The rock did not stay in the same place the whole time.

hypothesis

Now what does our soap rock look like?

Draw a picture of the soap rock after it is taken out of the tub.

What was the out come of the experiment?

Write your results below your drawing.

results

Video

Rock Cycle Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7WFeh30UpY

Magic School Bus Rocks and Rolls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrC15uySkVE