Mineral Types & Uses Lesson Plans - Videos & Lessons

About This Chapter

The Mineral Types & Uses chapter of this course is designed to help you plan and teach mineral properties in your classroom. The video lessons, quizzes and transcripts can easily be adapted to provide your lesson plans with engaging and dynamic educational content. Make planning your course easier by using our syllabus as a guide.

Weekly Syllabus

Below is a sample breakdown of the Mineral Types & Uses chapter into a 5-day school week. Based on the pace of your course, you may need to adapt the lesson plan to fit your needs.

Day	Topics	Key Terms and Concepts Covered
Monday	Mineral consumption and extraction	Mineral distribution, open-pit and strip mining, smelting, environmental impacts of mineral extraction
Tuesday	Optical properties of minerals; mineral shapes	Luster, streak, mineral opacity, transparency and translucency; different mineral shapes
Wednesday	Mineral strength	Tenacity, hardness, the Mohs scale, cleavage, fracture
Thursday	Mineral density	Density and specific gravity of common rock-forming and metallic minerals
Friday	Chemical classifications of minerals	Silicate minerals, feldspars and quartz, micas, non-silicate minerals, carbonates, sulfates, halides

9 Lessons in Chapter 3: Mineral Types & Uses Lesson Plans

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1. What Are Minerals? - Types, Properties & Examples

In this lesson, you will learn about minerals and their properties. You will also understand the importance and everyday use of different types of minerals found on Earth.

2. Mineral Consumption: How Developed and Developing Nations Consume Minerals Differently

In this lesson, you will learn about how minerals are used around the world. You will also gain an understanding of where minerals are found on earth and how developed and developing nations consume them differently.

3. Extraction and Processing of Minerals & the Environmental Impacts of Mineral Use

In this lesson, you will learn about the different methods used to extract minerals from the ground and gain an understanding about how different types of mining affect the environment.

4. Optical Properties of Minerals: Luster, Light Transmission, Color & Streak

Minerals are conveniently identified based on their physical properties. These properties include luster, ability to transmit light, color and streak. This lesson will describe each of these properties and examples of each.

5. Crystal Shape of Minerals: Forms and Types

Did you know that the term crystal can have different meanings in addition to something pretty to look at? A crystal can refer to a regular pattern of molecules within a mineral or the shapes at a macroscopic level. This is also known as the crystal habit.

6. Mineral Strength: Tenacity, Hardness, Cleavage & Fracture

What does it mean to say that one mineral is stronger than another? This lesson will explore different minerals to identify and describe mineral strength in terms of tenacity, hardness, cleavage and fracture.

7. Mineral Density & Specific Gravity: Definition and Properties

Mineral density and specific gravity are similar properties used by mineralologists to identify minerals. This lesson describes a common practice used to determine density and specific gravity.

8. Silicate Minerals: Chemical Classifications & Examples

Silicate minerals make up the bulk of the earth's crust. All silicates are made of the same building block, the silicon-oxygen tetrahedron. This lesson describes the major silicate minerals including feldspars and quartz.

9. Non-silicate Minerals: Chemical Classifications & Examples

While most minerals are silicates, many non-silicate minerals are found in the earth's crust and are important as well. This lesson will use examples and describe the three major groups of non-silicate minerals, including carbonates, halides and sulfates.

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Practice Final Exam

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Visit the Physical Geology Syllabus Resource & Lesson Plans page to learn more.

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