Everything Rocks & Minerals

National Geographic Kids Everything Rocks And Minerals      2011

As expected in a National Geographic product, this book features striking photos. The approach, however, is scattershot and eclectic. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing., however. 

Students’ curiosity about a topic often follows an eclectic approach, and at the same time, there is still much in the book that can be used for focused study on the subject

Igneous rock, metamorphic rock, sedimentary rock, and the rock cycle – each gets an eye pooping 2 page spread that is rendered in infographic style. These presentations are both attractive and informative, and they contain a nice amount of content. There is also a great spread that compares raw materials to finished products.

There is a short section at the end that provides hands on activities for students.  They are making “fossils”, panning for gold, and making crystals.

The afterword features a quick blurb about responsible stewardship of the environment.

Other notable features include a world map that show the distribution of resources that we gather from rocks, a diagram of a NY street scene that shows all of the uses of rocks and rock related resources that appear in the photo.

Additionally, this book encourages readers to take an expansive view in considering the resources that we obtain from rocks, as well as the rocks themselves. This conception includes the metals that we use, as well as energy sources such as coal, oil, and natural gas.