Dr. Marvin
Earth’s Building Blocks
Earth science students are diving deep into the world of rocks and minerals. These budding geologists identified ten different minerals based on their hardness, luster, color and streak. They learned that some minerals, like mica, cleave in sheets and other minerals, such as magnetite, are magnetic. Scholars were excited to test whether the mineral that they believed to be calcite reacted with hydrochloric acid!
Physics students are making connections between work, potential energy, and kinetic energy. Scholars examined the potential energy of a marble on a ramp to visualize the law of conservation of energy. This potential energy was converted to kinetic energy as it rolled toward the floor. Students took a close look at the contribution of mass and velocity to the marble’s kinetic energy and noted that the velocity had a much larger contribution to kinetic energy than the mass.
