Need help on a geology lesson for 5th graders?

Question

Tomorrow I am supposed to teach some 5th graders about Ohio geology. I am not a geologist, I am a naturalist, and an intern naturalist at that. I know very little about geology! I have an hour to talk to these kids. Around here we have Ohio Shale, Bedford Shale, and Berea Sandstone...just FYI. What should I cover in my hour-long basic geology lesson for 5th graders?

Answer 1

By 5th grade, they should have studied the rock cycle, so you can refer to that (you might want to ask the teacher to make sure they learned about it). You could teach them about using a key or guidebook to identify rocks and then go out around the school, find some rocks together, and identify them. You could also talk about the different features of Ohio geology and then let the kids make maps showing them. If you get huge pieces of paper and let them work in groups, they'd have fun with that. A more expensive alternative is to give them clay, pieces of hard cardboard, and let them make 3D maps of geologic features. We did this with the 4th graders at my school, and they had a lot of fun.

Basically, don't talk to them for a whole hour... give them something active to do. They'll stay involved much better.