Lesson Plan

Teacher Candidate: Aleyna Chipperfield Date: 2/19/24

Group Size: 19 Allotted Time: 30 Minutes Grade Level: 2nd

Subject or Topic: What happens when rocks are placed in water?

Common Core/PA Standard(s)

1.E.2.1 Summarize the physical properties of Earth materials including rocks, minerals, soils
and water that make them useful in different ways.

Standard - CC.1.5.2.A - Participate in collaborative conversations with peers and adults in

small and larger groups.

Learning Targets/Objectives
- Students will be able to understand how to gather information about the properties of
rocks by experimenting and observing how different types of rocks react when placed
in water.
- Students will be able to communicate the effects and differences between the processes
of rubbing rocks together and submerging rocks in water through experimentation.

Formative Assessment Approaches Evidence observation or method of collection

1.Whole group/small group questioning 1. Walking around to observe/assist
2. Journal entries groups
2. Thumbs up/Thumbs down

Prerequisites
- Three types of Igneous rocks:
- Basalt, Scoria, Tuff
- Rocks can be described by their properties
- Process to describe by properties:
- identify the object
- observe and describe the color, shape, texture, size, etc.
- compare to other objects
- Different types of rocks al have their own different types of properties
- Smaller rocks (sand) results from the breaking (weathering) of larger rocks.
- Vocab:
- The Rock Cycle - A set of natural processes that form, break down, change,
and re-form rocks over time.
- Magma - hot liquefied, rock located deep below the Earth's surface
- Debris - the pieces of something broken down or destroyed
- What is the rock cycle?
- A set of natural processes that form, break down, change, and re-form rocks
over time.
 - Temperature, pressure, and changes in environmental conditions at and beneath
Earth's surface drive the rock cycle.
- What are the three main types of rocks found through the rock cycle?
- Sedimentary Rocks - formed from pieces of other existing rock or organic
material.
- Metamorphic Rocks - rocks that have been changed from their original form
by immense heat or pressure.
- Igneous Rocks - formed when molten hot material cools and solidifies.

New Key Vocabulary

- Submerged - to put underwater
- Natural Event - violent events that are outside the control of humans. They are caused
by the forces of nature

Content/Facts
- Effects of rocks being put underwater:
- Bubbling (the more hoes in the rock the more bubbles)
- Rock dust or other sediment separating from the rock
- Color changing of rocks
- Different rocks react differently
- Water level rises and drops with/without the rocks inside
- How would this happen in the real world?
- a rock could fall in a river, lake, stream, etc. by breaking off due to a natural
event (earthquake, volcanoes, tsunami’s, etc.)
- when a rock falls in water the same reactions from our small cups would occur
with larger rocks
- the larger the impact the more impactful the effects of rocks in water
will be.

Introduction/Activating/Launch Strategies
- Ask students to get out their composition journals and flip to their page from friday.
- Ask students about what they experimented with last week
- call on several students to answer
- Ask follow-up questions such as: (encourage students to read and look at their findings
from their journal)
- “What are some of the things you discovered through your experimenting?”
- “Do you remember the rock's name?” or “what was the name of the rock?”
- “What were some of the different things you noticed or we talked about with
each of the rocks?”
- “Why do you think that happened?”
- Tell students that we are going to be Geologists again, but this time we are going to
experiment with rocks under water!

Development/Teaching Approaches
- Tell students to flip to their next available page in their composition books and hand
them the page insert for today’s experiment.
 - Write the question “What do you think will happen when rocks are placed in water?”
on the board with one big line down the middle of the question.
- Ask students the question and have them turn and talk with their neighbor about their
predictions.
- Write some of their predictions on one side of them line underneath the
question
- Tell students that we will fill out the other half beneath the question after we finish the
experiments so they should keep that question in the back of their minds while they
work.
- Draw students' attention up front and begin explaining and demonstrating what the
students will be doing in their groups.
- Describe this process as you do it:
- “Choose one rock from your bag and observe it dry”
- “Put that rock in the water. Remember only one rock in the water at a
time.”
- “As a group, take turns looking at the rock in the water and discuss
some of the things you see happening. Remember the cup stays on the
ground so it doesn’t get spilled.”
- “After each group member has observed the rock in the water, one
member carefully takes the rock out of the water and places it on their
paper towel to lightly pat it dry.”
- “repeat the process until your group has observed how each rock
interacts when placed in water.”
- Call student’s groups and have them find a spot in the room with their composition
journals.
- Call one student from each group to receive their 2 bags of rocks, paper towels, and
their empty cup.
- After each student has their materials, instruct them to observe their rocks dry and talk
with their group.
- After each group has observed and discussed each type of rock, go around and fill each
group's cup up with water (halfway or a little less).
- Walk around and ask each group questions as they work, such as:
- “Did the rocks change as you put them in the water?”
- “How did they change?”
- “Why do you think they changed?” or “Why do you think that happened?”
- Remind them that their answers to these questions are the kinds of things they
should be writing in their composition journals.
- Give students about 10-15 minutes to experiment with their water and rocks.

Closure/Summarizing Strategies
- Call students back to their seats and ask them “since you all did such amazing jobs at
being geologists, what are some things you all discovered about the red rock, Scoria?”
- call on several students to answer and encourage them to look in their journals
- repeat questioning for the other two types of rocks (using their names)
- Ask students to now think back to their geologist study on Friday and ask “how were
some of your findings from that experiment different from this one?
- call on several students to answer
 - Re-ask students the focus question on the board.
- call on several students to share and write their answers on the board or put a
checkmark on the other side of the line if the prediction was correct.
- Tell students that comparing experiments and testing the same rocks using different
methods, like we did, are exactly what Geologists do to learn about our earth materials
and their properties/functions.
- “It is important for Geologists to go through these processes so that we can all
be aware about the planet right beneath our feet!”
- Instruct students to put their composition journals in a safe spot to be used again
tomorrow when we learn about natural events that make the processes we
experimented with a reality!

Accommodations/Differentiation
- This experiment could be done in partners or in whole group using the Doc Cam
- Some of the pages for student’s journal entries could have some of the vocab words
printed on the top so that students can reference them for spelling purposes.

Materials and Resources:

- 4 cups
- Paper Towels
- Bag of rocks, 2 for each group (comes with the kit)
- Composition journals (each student has one)
- Journal entry experiment page (20 copies)