The rock cycle · rmH4W92eHVM · 4:43
Sketchnote in the works
status page/video ID saved · analysis package pending
Unit 12 · Earth Science arc · 7th grade
Every rock is a recycled rock.
There is no such thing as a new rock — only new arrangements of very old matter. Mountains become sand, sand becomes stone, stone becomes mountains again. One pebble in a trail mix of a rock tells the whole story.
3 families
6 manipulatives
12 flashcards
1 pebble
one sample, three lifetimes
The phenomenon · read the pebbles
The Rock Made of Rocks
Pick up a conglomerate and you're holding a contradiction: a rock whose pieces were already rocks. Each pebble inside had a whole career before this rock existed. Tap one and read its resume.
tap a pebble — it has a previous life
the conglomerate
One rock, three lifetimes
A mountain erodes into pebbles. A river rolls them smooth. A floodplain buries them. Pressure and mineral glue press them into a new rock with the old rocks still inside — conglomerate. Every piece of this rock used to be a different rock. Tap a pebble to read which one.
Watch · Khan Academy
The whole cycle, in five minutes
Manipulative · three families
Fire-born, layered, changed
Every rock on Earth belongs to one of three families, named by how it was made. Learn the textures, then file the specimens.
Igneous
born from cooling magma or lava
Granite — slow-cooled underground, big crystals.
Basalt — fast-cooled lava, fine and dark. Most ocean floor.
Obsidian — cooled so fast it's glass.
Sedimentary
born from pressed, cemented sediments
Sandstone — a beach, pressed into stone.
Limestone — a sea of shells, cemented.
Conglomerate — you know this one personally.
Metamorphic
changed by heat & pressure — no melting
Marble — limestone, recrystallized.
Slate — shale, pressed into pages.
Gneiss — banded like a layered cake that survived the oven.
file the specimens
Pick a specimen, then file it with its family.
Igneous
cooled melt
Sedimentary
pressed layers
Metamorphic
changed, not melted
0 / 8 filed
Manipulative · the lab
Ride the rock cycle
You are a pebble. Every button is a process the Earth actually runs — pick one and change identity. Complete the loop and the board stamps your passport.
the pebble starts as: magma. pick a process →
available processes
the journey
magma
Standard: MS-ESS2-1 — the cycling of Earth's materials and the flow of energy that drives it (NGSS Lead States, 2013). DCI: ESS2.A Earth's Materials and Systems. CCC: Stability and Change — the matter is forever; the rocks are temporary.
The cycle never hurries
A grain of sand in the Grand Canyon might be on its fourth lifetime — mountain, sand, stone, sand again. The cycle runs on two engines: Earth's interior heat (melting, lifting) and the Sun (weather, rivers, wind that break rocks down). Matter recycles; energy flows through. That's the whole machine.
Almost nothing is original
Earth is 4.6 billion years old, and nearly every atom of its crust has been recycled many times. The very oldest surviving rocks are rare treasures — everything else has been someone else already. Including your driveway.
Myth-busters · tap to flip
Unlearn these three things
Manipulative · Spaced repetition
Say it like a scientist
Twelve words. Flip the card, grade yourself honestly, and the deck schedules your next review — hard words come back sooner. Come back tomorrow and it remembers you. (It lives in your browser, no account.)
–due now
–locked in
–seen so far
flip the card, then grade yourself
Sketch · sketchnotes
Draw the cycle, not a pile of rocks
The exact page video is identified. Printable sheets stay pending until transcript and analysis packages pass the sketchnote source gate.
Investigate · evidence first
Turn one pebble into a history
The page's rock-cycle models remain usable now; a print-first transformation record is queued after source review.
Investigation in the works
Use the existing page models now. The exact transcript package and classroom record are still pending.
in the worksExit ticket · 5 questions
Before you leave the quarry
No grade, no stakes — just proof the cycle turned. Answer all five to earn the stamp.
question 1 of 5