Geoscience Teaching Materials
Science Outreach Program Education Resource Center
Geoscience teaching kits, materials, and activities are available for loan to educators and for use in classrooms and outreach programs. (Biological Sciences has their kits listed at http://www.socm.vt.edu/educationresourcecenter.html.)
Usually kits go out on loan for 1-2 weeks.
They are available only as hand-carried, they are not designed for shipping.
With sufficient advance notice, Montgomery County Public Schools teachers can request the “pony” to pick up, deliver, and return kits for them.
Appropriate grade levels are indicated by All, LE (lower elementary), UE (upper elementary), M(iddle), and H(igh) School.
Please contact Llyn Sharp to reserve materials. llyn@vt.edu, 540-231-4080.
Download an annotated list of the kits below in PDF format (as of 10/09).
Earth System Sciences Kits and Equipment
The kits are in alphabetical order within their categories.VIRGINIA
- Valley and Ridge Local Sedimentary Rocks (Geology Kit 1) (M, H)
15 specimens of the Blacksburg section, geologic maps. - Virginia Fossils & Paleontology (UE, M, H)
9 hands-on activities, fossils, and materials. - Virginia Piedmont Rocks (M, H)
Labeled sedimentary rocks from the Piedmont, extra activities. - Virginia State Fossil: Chesapecten jeffersonius(All)
Several specimens, background, and a hands-on activity. - Virginia State Rock: Unakite (All)
Specimens of unakite (granite) polished and unpolished.
GEOSCIENCES
Mineralogy Kits
- Fluorescent Minerals (All)
10 minerals and a portable blacklight - Hardness Set (Geomodules) (All)
Large set with 9 minerals, glass, penny, nail, and streak plate - Hardness Set (Moh's, Wards) (All)
Small set with 9 minerals, glass, penny, nail, and streak plate - Household Minerals (All)
Various minerals (halite, kaolinite etc.) and their resulting products - Minerals & Art (All)
Art supplies (paint, crayons, etc.) to create pictures of minerals - Minerals & their Uses (All)
Various minerals and their resulting commercial products - Mineral Properties (Geomodules) (All)
Minerals showing fracture, cleavage, hardness, and specific gravity - Mineral Properties Investigation (All)
6 unknown minerals to sort using observation
Paleontology Kits
- Coal (UE, M, H)
Coal samples, maps of coal mine locations, and literature. - Dino-Mite (LE)
Plastic dinosaurs, educational posters, and fossil casts and molds. - Fossil Making & Excavation (LE, UE)
Fabricated outcrops containing real fossils with excavation tools. - Fossils (GeoModules) (H)
Sets of brachiopod, mollusc, coral, and a variety of fossils. - Geologic Time (UE, M, H)
Fossil specimens, fossil cards & rope to create a timeline. - Trilobites (UE, M, H)
Trilobite fossils and casts and informative guidebook.
Petrology Kits
- Carbonate Rocks, Caves, and Karst Geology (All)
- Introduction to Rock & Mineral Identification (UE)
Group sets of minerals & rocks with classification and identification activities - Luck Stone Rock (specific to 5th grade SOLs) (E)
Rock samples and posters for observational/inquiry-based learning - Rock Cycle Game (All)
Board game examining the transitions between the 3 rock classes - What's in a Rock? (UE, M)
An array of rock and mineral specimens
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
- Aquatic Insects ID Practice Kit (M, H)
- EnviroScape Watershed Model: Non-point Source (All)
- EnviroScape Watershed Model: Wetlands (All)
- GLOBE Field Test Kits for Hydrology Protocols (H)
- Karst Groundwater Flow Model #2 (H)
- Nitrogen Cycle Game (UE)
Board/card game demonstrating nitrogen molecule travel - Save Our Streams Water Quality Monitoring Equipment Kits (M, H)
- Weather Kit (UE, M, H)
- World Water Day Monitoring Test Kits (All)
OTHER
Inquiry Science Kits
- Looking Closely at Natural Objects(LE, UE)
Shells, invertebrate fossils, rocks, and other natural objects
Field Equipment Available for Loan
- Bubblers and bins for live aquatic insects
- Portable tables
- Trapper's Gloves
- Waders
