Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in Pound Ridge, New York

Last Saturday, Trailside Museum at the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation hosted Rocks and Minerals to about 25 children and their parents. Presenting the course, Trailside assistant curator Dan Aitchison described the 90 minute presentation, which included a little rock finding excursion into the woods with tiny pick hammers and plastic goggles, as a "super basic geology 101 introduction for kids."

Seated with their parents at four tables, the children began by looking at rocks through the eyes of a geologist rather than they way stones and pebbles normally pass through their sight and touch. Hardness, shape and texture he said, Geologists break them up into different categories using observational tools and the knowledge of what makes each rock different.

From there, Mr. Aitchison got a little more sophisticated without losing sight of his audience. A mineral, such as copper, is like vanilla ice cream in that it is only vanilla ice cream and a rock is what kids sometimes do with Thanksgiving Dinner. Peas, carrots, turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes mushed into one messy mix makes for a geological analogy to grandma's good efforts. In other words, "It looks like throw up but tastes really good - that's a rock," he said.

It was then easy to pick out and remember that something uniformed looking is classified as a mineral. Layering them deeper into the study of rocks, Mr. Aitchison took them to the next level of scientific classification. Geologists, he told them, put rocks into three formation categories - volcanism, sedimentation and metamorphism.

Sedimentary rocks are formed as fragments are moved through air and water and pushed together in layers until rocks are formed. Igneous Rocks, formed from volcanism, occur out of the solidification of cooled magma, and metamorphic rocks morph layers of sedimentary and Igneous rocks by adding heat, time and pressure.

Of course, it's more fun to see the science than it is to say it and with a little multi colored clay, Mr. Atchison gave the children a few million years of geology in a few minutes. Green, flat clay stood in for an ancient lake bed and was covered with large blue boulders brought in by thousands of years of rainfall.

The next millennium had less rain and only sand made it's way onto the boulders forming another flat surface of clay. Then more boulders rolled in with the heavy rain and drought emptied the lake still leaving the four layers behind. So the kids could get a look at the sedimentary rock, a river ran thought it and exposed the geological record in the form of a plastic knife acting as a stream.

Finally, the earth burped some magma and the children pushed the layers down with their fist to symbolize the heat and pressure that lava produces. The result : a hands on lesson demonstrating how sedimentary rock is changed through metamorphism.

Did this lesson then take the 25 in attendance into the woods, ready to burrow below the ground and eventually turn them into geologists? "I'm just trying to give them a connection to the earth," said Mr. Aitchison, so they realize things come from somewhere and don't just materialize somewhere in a factory.

Rich Monetti coverage of event at the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation with Dan Aitchinson