Project Overview

This oversized poster was created by a 5^th/6^th grader at Shutesbury Elementary School in Shutesbury, Massachusetts, as part of a learning expedition on Geology.

The expedition included fieldwork during which students collected rocks, minerals and crystals, explored caves and climbed mountains. Students also worked extensively with three local geologists. Students were involved in standard lab work concerning rock and mineral testing and identification, using rocks they had collected and rocks provided by the school. They created large charts based on their lab work.

For a final assignment, students designed a fictionalized machine that would be able to identify individual rock or mineral samples. Each student created a poster-sized diagram of how his or her machine worked based on what he or she learned about rock and mineral identification during the expedition.

This student’s machine incorporates many elements of identification, including density, opacity and luster tests, and shows several different views of the process needed to accurately identify samples. The writing on the second half of the poster demonstrates a detailed understanding of the function of each of the steps this machine would use to identify rocks and minerals.

As is evidenced by this student’s detailed and precise hand lettering, students in this class spent considerable time working on graphic lettering.

As another aspect of this Learning expedition, students ran six commercial rock tumblers for three months, polishing rough tumbling stock into glossy polished stones. They learned jewelry-making, purchased jewelry findings with funds borrowed from the classroom teacher, and set up and managed a rock and gem shop as a fund raiser, selling crystals they collected, polished stones, and jewelry made with crystals and polished stones. The funds raised were used for a multi-day trip to NYC, where they visited the American Museum of Natural History and met with jewelers at Tiffany’s.