Pebbles
Pebbles belong to no one
Until you pick them up-
Then they are yours.
But which, of all the world’s
Mountains of little broken stones,
Will you choose to keep?
The smooth black, the white,
The rough gray with sparks
Shining in its cracks?
Somewhere the best pebble must
Lie hidden, meant for you
If you can find it.
-Valerie Worth
Back in September, we began the year with a class inquiry into rocks. Students were given a short poem called "Pebbles" by Valerie Worth, and encouraged to find one or two interesting or special rocks over the summer and bring them to school in the fall. We looked at them closely, brainstormed words we could use to describe them, and played an observation/identification game with them. These ideas were my contributions. What did the kids want to do? Smash them of course! So we brought out the hammers and the eye protection, and spent some time in small groups finding out what was inside them! Then we brought out the magnifying glasses. And as we worked, I listened carefully to the exclamations and questions that the children had. They included a wide variety, from "It's sparkly in the sunlight" to "I wonder if it came from space?" Finally we came together and listed our questions on chart paper. They ranged from the concrete - "Are train tracks made of rocks?" to the existential - "Who made rocks?"
As September rolled into October, I sourced a variety of books about rocks, as well as a variety of videos. Because rocks usually only change naturally over hundreds and thousands of years, we had to find ways to access these ideas. The kids used words and pictures in their learning logs to record the ideas and information they found interesting or important, as well as the new questions they had, and we had regular sharing sessions. One of the videos (Bill Nye the Science Guy) gave us an idea for making our own crystals. Finally, we did an interesting field trip to the Stonewall Quarry Park where we learned about fossil formation, toured the indoor exhibits, the old quarry, and finally hunted for fossils before calling it a day.
Then November approached, and with it, report cards and student-led conferences. We got busy with other things, and the poster with our questions hung ignored on the bulletin board for a good month or more. Then last week, I was looking for a topic we could write a shared poem about, and came back to rocks. I didn't know what the kids would remember after such a long time. So I brought the chart with our questions to the carpet where we meet. We went through them one by one. To my amazement, the kids answered each and every question! They remembered information that I wasn't sure they had understood during our study! And as they spoke, more and more voices joined in, adding details, stressing the points they found important.
Here's the list of questions they were able to answer:
Did these children learn? Absolutely. And there was no final unit test to study for, no project to present, no external "reason" to learn about rocks. Just a growing curiosity that evolved organically and in a social context. And I dare say, they probably learned more this way about rocks and minerals - and at the end of the day, not one of them will tell you they hate school, learning, science, or tests.
