Engage your second grade students' geological thinking through this fun (and delicious) project. First, instruct youngsters to use their fingernail to make a cut running from the center of a square of cheese directly upward to the edge. Students should then hold the top corners of this cheese and slowly pull it in the opposite direction to one another, observing how it tears along the hole they originally made. With a second cheese square, get students to cut two slits into the middle of the cheese roughly an inch apart using their fingernail. Have students pull the top two corners of the cheese away from each other and observe how the two existing slits join together before the cheese pulls apart. Inform your young scientists that this is a fault, just like those in the crust of the earth.
This simple and interesting project gets your second-graders investigating how chemicals weather rocks. Explain to your youngsters how the process involved in their experiment is similar to precipitation affecting buildings and structures. Get students to place a piece of chalk in a glass or plastic container and carefully pour pure vinegar (acetic acid) over the top of the chalk until it is completely submerged. Have your young scientists sit and observe the effect that the vinegar has on the chalk for 20 minutes.
One example of an educational geology project allows your second grade students to witness the science of fossilization in action. Provide your students with a mix of plaster of Paris and water that is thick and even. Get students to lay flat a piece of cardboard, roughly the size a shoe box lid, and coat it evenly with the plaster of Paris solution so the plaster is about an inch deep. Supply each of your students with a large leaf (although not larger than the piece of cardboard) and get them to daub it with petroleum jelly. Students should then lay their leaf flat on the surface of the plaster and press it downward about a quarter of an inch. Instruct students to leave the plaster to dry for at least 24 hours before returning to remove the leaf and observe the fossil-effect plaster that results.
To complete this enjoyable second grade geology project, get students to line up three identical plastic cups next to one another. Students should half fill two of the cups with water and label one of these cups "S." Have students place a chocolate-coated candy in the bottom of each of the cups before starting a timer. After every five minutes elapses, get students to swirl the cup labelled "S" is a circular motion for 15 seconds. Instruct students to carry out this procedure for an hour, swirling the "S" cup every five minutes. After an hour, instruct students to pour away the water and compare the condition of the three candies. Ask students to consider how swirling and static water and no water affected the candies, and compare this process to the erosion that occurs naturally near bodies of water.