Third Grade Investigations

Rocks and Minerals

photos from John Betts Mineral Page

If you want to study about the geology of our amazing Earth look here:

• Welcome to our Earth be sure and read the other links
• What On Earth Is Soil? good information about dirt vs. soil
• The Earth's Interior and Surface is a site from NASA with lots of places to go to find out more about our Earth
• The Earth's Center

If you want to investigate about the formation of rocks and minerals look here:

• The Rock Cycle a great diagram to study
• What kind of rock do I have? look at some rocks up close
• Rock Key here's some ways to tell what type of rock you have.
• Rock Identifier clues for identifying rocks
• What is a rock? What is a mineral? What's the difference?
• Minerals - learn more about how they are special
• Mineral Pictures Institute lots and lots of pictures of minerals; click on a picture to see it up close
• Mineral Images hundreds of minerals; click on the name and wait for a large picture to load
• Birthstones find your birthstone and read facts about it
• The homepage Gems has more facts.
• Another birthstone page

If you want to investigate about amazing and destructive powers within our Earth look here:

Savage Earth: Restless Planet - from PBS with a lot of information and places to go; have an adult help you find the best links

Volcanoes

• Facts about Volcanoeslots of questions with answers from the US Geological Society
• Volcanoes Online

Earthquakes

• Earthquake Legends- how some cultures explained earthquakes
• Earthquake pictures
• Earthquake facts
• Why do they happen?

For Fun or More Study

• Geo-Mysteries three mysteries to solve about rocks and minerals(from the Children's Museum in Indianapolis).
• Fun Rock and Minerals Activitiesfrom Junior Think Quest
• The Adventures of Mineral Man and Rockhound lots of great information written by students in Atlanta, GA.
• Lots of pictures on the GEO GALLERY!