Sorting Rocks and Creating Silt

Our final week exploring rocks took us through 2 experiments.  The first was using 3 screens to separate the different sizes of rocks.  We were able to find 4 different sizes in our rock mixture. The students then identified the sizes with the labels provided.  They did a great job!

The second experiment was to created silt.  We started with a sand mixture in a vial.  We added water to the sand mixture and shook it like crazy.  Then we set the shaken vials along with an unshaken vial of water and sand on a shelf over night.  The next day we observed the vials and noticed that the shaken vials had 4 layers in them (sand, silt, water and air) while the unshaken vial had only 3 layers (sand, water and air).  The students were amazed that they could create silt with sand and water!