Rock Cycle Game

Vanderbilt Student Volunteers for Science

Summer 2005
Training Presentation
 Important!!!
• Please use this resource to reinforce your
understanding of the lesson! Make sure you
have read and understand the entire lesson prior
to picking up the kit!
• We recommend that you work through the kit
with your team prior to going into the classroom.
• This presentation does not contain the entire
lesson—only selected experiments that may be
difficult to visualize and/or understand.
 I. Introduction (p.2)
• This activity illustrates the general scheme of the
rock cycle.
• Students move between geologic states
depending on the action directed by a word cube
at a geologic station.
– Each cube has different possible processes that the
particular state can undergo.
• Students should record movements as they
progress through the game.
• No time limit and no winner. The teacher should
end the game after each student has gone
through several states in the cycle.
 II. Procedure (p.2)
• Place stations around a large
table (or around the room) with
an example of each state and
the specific word cube at the
appropriate station.
• Students choose a starting
point in the cycle and take
turns rolling the word cube to
receive directions.
• Students mark their
observation sheets with a
colored pencil.
– Color appropriate arrow if
states are changed.
– Underline the appropriate
state if they remain in that
state.
III. The rock cycle game as a model
(p.2)
• This game works to
predict outcomes based
on a set of assumptions.
• This model proposes the
following:
– The rock cycle does not
progress in an orderly way;
there is a large element of
chance in change of state
– The rock cycle is not totally
random. Rocks in a
specific state can change
to some other states but
not to all other states.
III. The rock cycle game as a model
(cont.)
• It is possible to
determine the
probability that a rock
in a specific state will
change to another
state.
• The probabilities are
listed in the table to
the right.
 IV. Testing the model/Discussion
(p.4)
• The model describes fairly well what is
seen in the mountains of East Tennessee.
• The model does not describe middle
Tennessee rocks well at all.
– The full rock cycle generally occurs only on
plate boundaries.
– Areas in the craton (the center of stable
plates) have a very shortened rock cycle.