Task 2: Complex activity: Instructions and rules
“Identify Rocks”
The aim of the activity is to get to know some features of several Rocks and try to figure out their
names. The students will need to work in small groups and look at in details, discussing the different
options and in the end they will get the right outcome.
They will receive a worksheet with a Dichotomic Key. There will be always two different paths to
choose and according with their thoughts one of the two routes will be rule out.
The teacher will explain the activity to their students saying out loud the routes to get to a Rock called
Limestone.
1a It is made up of sheets
Go to number 2
1b It isn’t made up of sheets
Go to number 3
2a It hasn’t got any shiny mineral
Shale
2b It has got shiny minerals and the rock is shiny
Schist
3a Rocks with little holes
Basalt
3b Rocks without holes
Go to number 4
4a Rocks made up of grains of sand
Sandstone
4b Rocks without grains of sand
Go to number 5
5a Its colour is white, beige or any light colour
Go to number 6
5b Other colours
Go to number 8
6a Rocks often containing fossils
Limestone
6b Rocks without fossils
Go to number 7
7a Very soft. It can be scratched with a finger nail
Gypsum
7b It can’t be scratched with a finger nail
Marble
8a It contains pink minerals
Pink granite
8b Without pink minerals
Go to number 9
9a Completely black rocks
Coal
9b It contains black minerals and light coloured minerals
Gray granite
FOLLOW UP ACTIVITY
Students will have to solve the following crossword,
in order to reinforce the newly acquired concepts.
Across
1.
A widespread colourless, white, or yellowish mineral, used in the manufacture of plaster of Paris,
various plaster products, and fertilizers.
2.
A hard, dense, dark volcanic rock often having a glassy appearance.
4.
A coarse-grained metamorphic rock that consists of layers of different minerals and can be split
into thin irregular plates.
7.
A common sedimentary rock consisting mostly of calcium carbonate.
8.
A metamorphic rock formed by alteration of limestone ,often irregularly coloured by impurities,
and used especially in architecture and sculpture.
Down
1.
A common, coarse-grained, light-coloured, hard igneous rock consisting chiefly of quartz,
orthoclase or microcline, and mica,
3.
A fissile rock composed of layers of claylike, fine-grained sediments.
5.
A sedimentary rock formed by the consolidation and compaction of sand and held together by a
natural cement, such as silica.
6.
A natural black material used as a fuel, formed from fossilized plants .