STONE WALL GEOLOGY

Using a stone wall and nearby bedrock exposures, the children in a second-grade class were introduced to geology. The children developed lists of characteristics to describe, identify and distinguish the different rock types found in the wall, gaining an acquaintance with a considerable variety in a short walk. They noted that some stones were smooth and hard and had nothing growing on them, while others were covered with moss and crumbled easily. These observations led to the recognition that geologic processes -- in this case, weathering -- go on today, i.e., that geology is not just concerned with the past. Samples from the wall were taken into the classroom for further study, including identification of minerals and further study of the effects of weathering. They compared the stones in the wall to the nearby bedrock, noting that most of the rock types in the wall are not represented in the bedrock, thereby seeing at first hand one of the major lines of evidence for continental glaciation.

With use of appropriate resources and posing questions of appropriate scope and depth, the ubiquitous and various stone walls of New England can be used to introduce geology at any grade level. Study of the hardscrabble history of farming in this part of the country is a natural extension of the geologic study of stone walls.