Lesson Plan

Date: February 1, 2017

Subject: Science Grade: 4
Topic: Essential Question (from unit, if applicable):

How do the rock cycle along with erosion and weathering form the landscape
around us?
What are the physical properties of some common rocks and minerals?

How are weathering and erosion a part of the rock cycle?

How are fossils used to help date and correlate rock layers?
What are some physical properties of local rocks and minerals?

Materials:
Power point presentation
Rocks, minerals and fossils (13)

Stage 1- Desired Results you may use student friendly language

What do they need to understand, know, and/or able to do?

Explain the difference between rocks and minerals and identify a few from the rock and
mineral samples that I brought and show where they are located on the Saskatchewan
map.
Understand some points on stratigraphy, and which fossils are older.

Students should understand how the rock cycle works and how erosion and weathering
are a part of the cycle. They should be able to explain how a fossil is created and how
fossils help to date stratigraphic layers.
They should be able to explain some of the physical properties of rocks and minerals
that can be found in Saskatchewan.

Outcome(s):

RM4.1- Investigate physical properties of rocks and minerals, including those found in the
local environment.
RM4.3- Analyze how weathering, erosion, and fossils provide evidence to support human
understanding of the formation of landforms on Earth. [CP, SI, TPS]

PGP Goals:
1.1 the ability to maintain respectful, mutually supportive and equitable professional
relationships with learners, colleagues, families and communities. I included this
goal because I have never worked with the teacher who asked me to do this lesson.
 She asked me out of the blue to do it and told me which outcomes she wanted me to
talk about.
2.2 proficiency in the language of instruction

Stage 2- Assessment

Assessment FOR Learning (formative) Assess the students during the learning to help
determine next steps.
I will be asking questions and
After the discussion on weathering and erosion- I have included some slides of photos
and will ask students whether it shows erosion or weathering. If there are any incorrect
answers we will take a few minutes to discuss the answers. We will also discuss a
picture with fossils in layers to ensure that they understand which layers are the oldest
and how this can be correlated to other cross sections.

Assessment OF Learning (summative) Assess the students after learning to evaluate

what they have learned.

We will look at the rocks and minerals that I brought with me, and at the end of the class
we will look at the slide of the rock cycle and have students use an educated guess to
figure out which part of the rock cycle each one fits into. Students liked doing this

Stage 3- Procedures:

Motivational/Anticipatory Set (introducing topic while engaging the students)

Explanation of why I am in the class that their teacher asked me to come in

and discuss rocks with them because I am a geologist.

Main Procedures/Strategies:

19 slide power point presentation (mostly photos)

Title page
Slide 2- What is a mineral? Pass around garnet, gypsum and pyrite What do you
notice about the minerals? A: That have a certain crystal structure, shape, often
color, and hardness.
Slide 3- Photo of minerals, notice how they are polished so there is no crystal structure
visible- you cant see any of the physical properties often used to identify minerals
Slide 4- Igneous rocks. Start passing around 2 igneous rocks. How can they look so
different when they are the same type of rock? What is the difference? A: crystal size,
color, minerals?
Slide 5- Igneous rocks- Where do these 2 rocks fit into this picture?
Slide 6- Pahoehoe- Pass around pahoehoe
Slide 7- Metamorphic rocks- discuss the pictures, sadly no good metamorphic sample
and give explanation of foliation..
Slide 8- Metamorphis rocks- Where would the metamorphic rocks be in this picture?
Slide 9 - Sedimentary rocks- definition. Explain picture and show the layers that make
up bedding. Why are they different colors? Changing seasons, different particles
deposited (flooding, volcano), or other reasons? What about grain size? Think about a
beach, how does the position of the beach affect the particle size?
Slide 10- What is a fossil? Body part, bone, trace or anything left behind by an animal or
plant. Pass around ammonite and leaf fossil.
Slide 11- How do fossils form Picture: fish dies, soft parts eaten, or rotted, notice how
the fish has been covered in sediments which preserves the fish from predators and
oxygen.
Slide 12- Quick explanation of this picture. Lower down layers are older, upper layers
are younger. Which layer of fossils are the oldest? The bottom ones. How does knowing
which fossils are in a layer of rock help to date the layer? How does this relate to finding
the same fossil somewhere else? (it means that they are the same age)
Slide 13- Erosion (erosion is the breaking up and taking away of pieces of rocks- ex wind)
and weathering (the breaking up in position of rocks ex. Freeze thaw cycle breaking up
the rock)
Slide 14- Is this photo weathering or erosion? Erosion
Slide 15 Is this photo weathering or erosion? Weathering. How do you think weathering
and erosion fit into the rock cycle? Think about the sed cycle?
Slide 16- Rock cycle- lets put the rocks we looked at on the rock cycle

Closing of lesson:

Slide 17-19- Photos of a geologist at work.

Personal Reflection:
Lesson went well, students were engaged and seemed to like the lesson. This lesson took
almost an hour and 15 minutes so it needs to be shorter. I should have either divided this
into two lessons or shortened in some way. I would remove slides 6 and 10 and pass out
fewer minerals-That should be enough to shorten it to an hour.
- the fossil part was not clear to the students, I need to find a different picture that shows
the steps instead of the final slide 12 which just shows the finished fossil. This part needs
more work.
*Adapted from Understanding by Design (McTighe and Wiggins, 1998)