DISCUSSIONS

Materials Provided

• Click to download Handout 8: Reading Follow-up Coloring Page (gif image)
  (Coloring page shows a picture of Jenny, Carlos and the Bat in the cave. Carlos points to pointy-shaped stone tree stumps that looked like soft ice cream. Icicle-shaped rocks hung from the ceiling. On the cave walls, the rocks rippled and draped like curtains. Here and there flower-like crystals grew, while others stuck out like strange spirals of funnel cake." )

Procedure
Allow students to color Handout 8: Reading Follow-up Coloring Page. While students are coloring, discuss questions below.

Discussion Questions

1. Can you think of other places where you have seen water acting as a sculptor?
   (cliffs, river beds, hoodoos, mud slides)

2. Many cave rock formations take tens of thousands of years to form. Should visitors break or collect cave formations?

3. Why is garbage harmful in a cave?

4. What things besides limestone dissolve?
   (salt, dyes, sugar, baking soda)

5. When people paint or write on walls or other things, it's called "graffiti." Do you have graffiti in your community? Discuss.

6. What kinds of damage can people do in caves?
   (drawing on walls, leaving garbage, breaking rock formation and crystals, collecting rock formations and crystals)
   Where on the coloring page is human damage shown?

7. (After crystal demonstration) How could you see crystals growing in a cave? Would crystals grow slower or faster?

CLASS DEMONSTRATIONS

Materials Required

• 4-6 cups all-purpose flour
• Water
• Large mixing bowl and mixing spoon

Procedure

1. Form hard dough with flour and water in mixing bowl. Knead dough until it is stiff.

2. Run water (gently) over the dough. Gradually, the dough ball will get smaller, until only a small nub of sticky material is left. Explain that this is how water dissolves rock formations in the cave, changing both their size and shape.

New Words for Lesson 4.1

Grade Level	Volcabulary
All grades	crystal, dissolve, rock formation, stalactite, stalagmite
Kindergarten	cry, grow, see, sad, soda, straw, bug, dry
Grade 1	joke, paint, sorry, twenty, matter, whisper
Grade 2	tear, whisper, destroy, hungry, destroy, dribble
Grade 3	crystal, hollow, ugliness, dodge, spirits, shadow, sculptor

All USGS teaching packets are based on National Education Standards.