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STEW Club – Making Crystals

Earlier this term, students participated in a lunchtime activity investigating making crystals. Students explored unique shapes and patterns of a range of metallic and ionic crystals under the microscope and observed how crystals are formed.

Students learnt about Geodes which are spherical rock structures with an internal cavity lined with mineral crystals. They explored that these amazing structures are formed by groundwater naturally picking up a variety of minerals as they make their way down from the surface into the rock hollows. The dissolved minerals in the groundwater over thousands of years, cultivate layers of bands of crystals inside the geode’s cavity. The unique nature of the composition of crystal in a geode act like a fingerprint.

Students participated in an activity using sugar crystals to recreate the formation of geodes.

Daniela Carboon

Learning Leader – Science and Technology