We began our layers of the Earth class by asking ourselves, “How many layers of the Earth are there?”. That is when everyone learned that there are four layers of, and that it is impossible to dig all the way down to the center of the Earth. We did many hands-on experiments with this class. We learned that the crust wasn’t made up of a completely solid surface like an egg shell, but it was more like a cracked egg shell. We did a tectonic plate experiment with graham crackers and cool whip and learned about the different ways that tectonic plates shift against each other to cause earthquakes, build mountains and cause parts of the mantle to rise to the surface and cool. Beyond layers of the Earth we learned about the different types of rocks that are formed on Earth by watching the tv special Rock Odyssey.  The class learned classy songs (that they can still sing today) that help them remember the three main types of rocks and how they are formed! One of the last experiments that we did in the class was to learn about how rocks can change over time with weathering and erosion. We tested hard rocks (jolly ranchers), soft rocks (life savers) and medium rocks (m&ms) in moving water vs still water. We were able to determine that rocks will erode and weather faster in moving water!