SINGING TO A LARGE CLASS –ABOUT A SAND GRAIN

Of course geology songs are great for field trips –but they also work for lecture classes. I played guitar and sang my original song “Weathering Released Me” last winter to my large enrollment introductory geology course (surface processes). The song details the life history of a sand grain, from its birth as a crystal in a granitic magma chamber through uplift, weathering and erosion, deposition, and all over again. The students’ enthusiasm amazed me—and I was thrilled that I could work in terms such as “saltate” and concepts such as lithification and geologic time.

I would like to present my song accompanied by my guitar. Lyrics to the first verse and chorus as follows:

I am a sand grain, and I was born a long time ago. In a dark magma chamber, a place where other crystals grow. My mother was a granite and she built a mountain so high. Through many years of uplift, I finally saw that blue sky!

Chorus: Then weathering released me. The wind blew me away. I was born to saltate, ramble and stray. Each year a little smaller as my corners wear away. I keep on going places ‘cus I have nowhere to stay.