Journey into the world of stone. Research work "a journey into the world of stones" Video about beautiful stones from the gem museum

When we say rocks, we mean minerals and rocks. Minerals are solid natural substances, minerals are an integral part of rocks. Stones have helped people out since ancient times. They were used to build homes, tools, and even make weapons in the Stone Age. Some rocks are used as fuel; jewelry was and is still being made from semi-precious and precious stones. It is not for nothing that children begin to study the topic “minerals and rocks” in the first grade, and then repeat and reinforce them in the second, third, and fourth. An atlas-identifier like Pleshakov’s atlas will help you decide in the world of stones. It contains drawings by which the stone can be easily identified and its name found. And you will also learn a lot about some of them.

Some minerals form crystals in nature - these are figures with smooth edges, some form inclusions in rock, and others can be found in nature in the form of large stones.

Gems

People call bright, beautiful stones gems. They are used to make jewelry and crafts. Some minerals are so scarce in nature and so difficult to obtain, which is why products made from them are very expensive, these are precious (or jewelry) stones. Those that are more common are semi-precious (topaz, malachite, opal, amethyst). Even more often - ornamental, they are used to make figurines, boxes, souvenirs (agate, jasper, selenite, onyx).

There are not so many precious stones, for example, diamond, sapphire, ruby, emerald. The stones are polished, applying edges to them, and this makes the natural piece of mineral much more beautiful. A cut diamond is called a diamond.

But stones are good for more than just jewelry. Glass cutting tools are made from waste from diamond processing, which is known to be the hardest mineral. Previously, rubies were used in the production of lasers, but now they have been replaced by artificial rubies.

A beautiful slightly bluish or bright blue mineral with dark veins.

Malachite- a bright green mineral with a beautiful dark pattern. Previously, it was mined in large quantities in the Urals, in the mountains. Bazhov’s tales glorify the work of craftsmen processing Ural malachite. Malachite was used to make jewelry, boxes, and even vases and figurines.

Amber- This is petrified tree resin. It retains its yellow-orange color and transparency. Sometimes in amber you find various insects that got stuck in the resin many years ago.

Coral- this is the skeleton of sea inhabitants, coral polyps. Corals look like petrified, porous tree branches, ranging in color from yellowish to red and even black. Coral is used to make jewelry.

Pearl- it is not a mineral or a rock, although it looks like a round pebble. Pearls are produced by seashells - bivalve mollusks. Each pearl is covered with a layer of mother-of-pearl, it is smooth and shiny. There are white, pink and black pearls.

Stones are also used in construction as building materials (limestone, sandstone) and finishing materials (granite, marble).

Other minerals and rocks

These stones are collectively called minerals. Some of them are minerals, some are rocks, and some were formed from lava foam or plant remains.

Rock salt (mineral halite). If you clean this mineral from impurities, you get ordinary table salt that we eat. And in nature it is found in the form of huge crystalline blocks. Halite is very brittle and easily dissolves in water.

The mineral is one of the most common on the earth's surface. The color of the stone ranges from yellowish, greenish to brown.

A mineral that forms beautiful oblong crystals. If the crystals are transparent, it is popularly called rock crystal. If they are also colored purple, it is an amethyst. If white - milky quartz. There are many other types of quartz. They are used to make souvenirs and decorations. Quartz is part of granite.

Layered and shiny mineral. It is part of granite and gives it shine.

A rock consisting of grains of sand cemented by clay or other material. Sandstone can be of different colors, but the predominant color is grey, yellowish-gray or white, and less commonly reddish. It is often used in construction and site design.

Since ancient times, this mineral has been widely used in flints - devices for making fire. In this regard, one of the elements of flint began to be called flint, although today hardened steel is used instead of the mineral. Flint, moreover, easily splits into sharp fragments, which is why primitive people previously used it to make tools and sharp hunting weapons.

This is fossilized lava, porous volcanic glass, formed as a result of the release of gases during the rapid solidification of hot lava. She doesn't drown in water. Pumice is used for hygienic cleaning of heels from dry skin and you can find it in your bathroom.

This is a rock that consists of quartz, feldspar and mica. The color of granite depends on the ratio of minerals. Reddish, brownish, greenish or reddish inclusions in granite are pieces of feldspar, dark and shiny are mica, white translucent are quartz. The stone seems to be granular, and grain in Latin sounds like “granum”, hence the name of the rock - granite. The stone is hard and durable.

Limestone - Chalk - Marble.

The basis of limestone is the remains (shells, shells, skeletons) of mollusks and other ancient inhabitants of the seas. Over the years, they have been crushed and compressed underground. But the rock is still not strong and is washed away by water. Limestone is used as a building stone. Limestone, in which shells of marine animals and their fragments are visible, is called shell rock.

A special form of limestone is chalk. It is formed by very small organic particles left over from dead marine life. Chalk is fragile and crumbles easily. There are entire chalk islands that seem to have grown out of the sea.

Marble is hardened limestone. It, like limestone, consists of calcite, but also contains impurities. The color of marble depends on these impurities - these are stripes of different shades and curved lines. After polishing, a beautiful pattern emerges on the surface of marble, and therefore it is often used for decorative finishing of rooms and buildings.

Peat - Brown coal - Hard coal - Anthracite.

Peat consists of decomposed plants that grow in bogs. Its main component is sphagnum moss. Peat is actively used as fuel, as a fertilizer, and even as a filter for wastewater treatment plants.

Over time, the peat compacts and turns into brown coal.

And if it remains underground for many years, it will become coal. The coal deposits that people mine today were formed from plants that lived on the earth millions of years ago. This is a very long process. Coal is used as fuel.

Over time, hard coal becomes anthracite. On anthracite rocks you can sometimes even see imprints of ancient plants - giant ferns. From such plants all the anthracite now existing in the world was obtained.

The main source of iron. It is usually black, slightly shiny, turns red over time, very hard, and attracts metal objects.

If we talk about minerals, we cannot fail to mention oil, although it is not a stone, a mineral, or a rock. Oil is a mineral substance, a viscous dark-colored liquid with the smell of gasoline, flammable. Oil was formed from the decay products of small animal and plant organisms (plankton) that lived millions of years ago. It is mined from the very depths of the Earth. Used to produce fuel, lubricants, and plastics.

Video about beautiful stones from the gem museum:

Goal and objectives: To study the stones that surround us To study the stones that surround us To learn as much as possible about the stones; Learn as much as possible about stones; Collect a collection of rocks and minerals; Collect a collection of rocks and minerals; Write a description of the rocks and minerals in the collection; Write a description of the rocks and minerals in the collection; Conduct experiments. Conduct experiments.

Research methodology: Study of literature on this topic; Studying literature on this topic; Excursions around native spaces; Excursions around native spaces; Collecting a collection of stones; Collecting a collection of stones; Drawing up a description of the collection; Drawing up a description of the collection; Photographing interesting objects; Photographing interesting objects; Creating a presentation and speech Creating a presentation and speech

Opal Opal is a symbol of fidelity and guarantee. Color: Pure opal is colorless, but it is almost always more or less milky and opaque, or colored in various dull tones by iron oxide and other impurities. The main advantage of opal is the ability to emit successively different rays under the influence of sunlight, causing a varied play of colors. Three types of opal are known: black opal, which has a very dark blue color with “flashes” of other colors; orange-red fire opal and white opal. Black opal is very expensive in dollars for 2 g. The largest opals are found in Australia. Back

Jewelry stones (precious stones) I order diamond, emerald, ruby, blue sapphire II order alexandrite, orange, purple and green sapphires, black noble opal, noble jadeite III order demantoid, spinel, noble opals white and fire, aquamarine, topaz, rhodolite , tourmaline IV order chrysolite, zircon, yellow, green and pink beryls, kunzite, turquoise, amethyst, pyrope, almandine, moon and sun stones, chrysoprase, citrine. Back

Jewelry and ornamental stones I order lapis lazuli, jadeite, jade, malachite, amber, colorless and smoky rock crystal, charoite II order agate, amazonite, rhodonite, bloodstone hematite, iridescent obsidian, common opal, opaque ionizing feldspars Back

Emerald (smaragd) is the most valuable and best studied variety of beryl; used in jewelry since antiquity. The name comes from Lat. smaragdus, Greek (c)maragdos "green". The Russian name supposedly comes from the Arabic-Persian “emerald”. Emerald (smaragd) is the most valuable and best studied variety of beryl; used in jewelry since antiquity. The name comes from Lat. smaragdus, Greek (c)maragdos "green". The Russian name supposedly comes from the Arabic-Persian “emerald”. Color: light to dark green; grassy green; sometimes yellowish-green. Color: light to dark green; grassy green; sometimes yellowish-green. Gloss: glassy. Gloss: glassy. Hardness: 7.5 - 8.0 on the Mohs scale. Hardness: 7.5 - 8.0 on the Mohs scale. Density: 2.69 2.78 g/cm3 Density: 2.69 2.78 g/cm3 Cleavage: absent; the fracture is uneven to conchoidal; fragile; numerous inclusions weaken the cohesion of the material. Cleavage: absent; the fracture is uneven to conchoidal; fragile; numerous inclusions weaken the cohesion of the material. Emerald Back

Alexandrite Alexandrite is famous for changing its color under different lighting conditions: during the day, its color range varies from dark blue to emerald green, and under artificial light, alexandrite takes on a purplish-red color. Alexandrite is a very hard mineral with high light refraction and an exceptional variety of colors. Its composition is (BeAl2)O4 dialuminum beryllium tetroxide. The mineral received its name in 1842 in honor of Tsar Alexander II, then still the prince-heir, since the time of the first discovery of the mineral coincided with the year the prince came of age (1834). Back

Spinel The mineral with the formula MgAl2O4 is spinel. Its transparent varieties are called noble spinel and are used in jewelry. The mineral with the formula MgAl2O4 is spinel. Its transparent varieties are called noble spinel and are used in jewelry. The ruby-red and deep pink colored bali ruby ​​stones are considered the most valuable. The word "Bali" probably comes from "Balaskus" the Latin name of Badakhshan, a province of Afghanistan famous for its precious stones from ancient times. The ruby-red and deep pink colored bali ruby ​​stones are considered the most valuable. The word "Bali" probably comes from "Balaskus" the Latin name of Badakhshan, a province of Afghanistan famous for its precious stones from ancient times. Back

Amethyst Amethyst is a stone that protects against intoxication. Colour: Varies from almost colorless pale violet, bluish violet to purple, dark violet, almost black. Under the influence of sunlight, amethyst gradually loses its purple color and becomes discolored. When heated to a temperature of 300 degrees Celsius, it completely loses its beautiful purple color. Mineral: fine-grained translucent quartzite with inclusions of mica or other minerals that give the stone a shimmering sheen with golden, red, green “sparkles.” Back

Malachite Malachite is a talisman for children. Color: light green, bright green, emerald green, turquoise, dark green. Mineral: Hydrous copper carbonate. Origin of name: Named from the Greek "milk with" "soft". According to another version, malachite got its name from the Greek word “malche”, which means “grass”. Zodiac sign: Libra. It is recommended to purchase on the twenty-seventh day of the lunar month. Back

Jet Jet is an ornamental stone, known since the Neolithic: rounded pieces of jet processed with flint tools were found at Stone Age sites. It is a black fossil coal with a bright, resinous, velvety sheen. Hardness 2.5-4. It polishes well and is easy to process. Other names for jet: black amber, gesher. This stone was named after the city or river Gages in ancient Lycia (Asia Minor). Back

Alla Kosheleva
Lesson summary “These amazing stones”

Municipal budgetary preschool educational institution - kindergarten No. 28 "Herringbone".

st. Mira 99-A Bryansk region, Klintsy, 243145

tel. 8- (48336) 5-09-78,

OGRN 1023201342328, INN/KPP 3203005426/324101001

Organized educational cognitive and research activities

on topic: "These amazing stones» .

Educator:

Kosheleva A.V.

Organized educational cognitive and research activities on topic:

"These amazing stones» .

Senior group.

Educational area: "Cognitive Development".

Target: Introduce children to the properties stones, expand the understanding of use stones by a person in the process of cognitive and experimental activity.

Educational objectives:

1. Introduce children to properties stones through basic experimentation.

2. To form elementary ideas in children of senior preschool age

about diversity stones, the ability to examine them and name their properties and draw up a diagram using symbols.

3. Expand knowledge about how and why a person uses stones by applying the presentation "World stones» (use of ICT) and game techniques for presenting educational material.

4. Activate and enrich the vocabulary with words denoting properties stones: hard, light, durable, heavy, colorful.

5. Develop cognitive activity in the process of getting to know the properties stones, the ability to formulate conclusions, express one’s point of view, and encourage children to give complete answers.

6. Develop cooperation skills, the ability to work independently and together.

Foster respect for natural resources.

7. Update forms of pedagogical partnership in the process of working with preschoolers.

Integration of educational regions: "Social and communicative development", "Speech development", "Artistic and aesthetic".

Equipment and materials: "box of sensations", sets stones on each table, wooden blocks, modeling dough, glasses of water, gravel, napkins, a large stone, a hammer, a helping diagram, an interactive whiteboard, a collection of products from stone, bachelor's caps, phonogram "Mage-dropout", presentation "World stones» .

Organization of children: subgroup.

I Introduction to the topic: educator.

The teacher invites the children into the hall and greets all the guests.

Educator: - Guys, I know that you are very inquisitive, quick-witted and smart children, so it’s interesting for me to play with you. I have a box and there is something in it. You'd like to know what's in it. I need an assistant. How can I determine who will help me? (Counting)

Maybe one of you knows an interesting little counting rhyme?

Please, (Kolya) count and choose a leader for the game.

Game "Box of Feelings".

You will all stand where it is convenient for you, I suggest to the presenter that you put your hand into the box and find by touch the object that lies there, but he does not tell us about the object, we ourselves will ask leading questions to guess.

Questions:

Is it alive? Is it fluffy (heavy, soft, cold?

Have you guessed what's in the box yet?

Then I will help you, guess the riddle.

It burns with fire in my mother’s earrings.

It lies useless in the dust on the road.

It changes shape, it changes color,

And in construction it is good for a thousand years.

It may be small -

lie in the palm of your hand.

Heavy, big -

You can't lift it alone.

Who, children, guessed my riddle?

Who recognized this object by signs?

That's right, this is a stone...we show it to the children...

Guys studying stones takes place in the laboratory, do you want to go there?

II Main part of the OOD. Educator.

Music is playing. The curtain opens. At the desk Scientist-Educator 2.

Goes out to the children.

Hello my young thinkers. Do you want to try yourself as a scientist?

Then put on your bachelor's cap and take your seats, today we will study the properties stones.

Please note on your table there is a tray with stones, take the stone you like in your hand, touch it, look at it.

-Stones same or different?

Than yours the stones guys are different?. (They are big and small)

What color you have stones?.

Or maybe a different color, as you think (gray, red, blue, brown, green.)

How to describe a property in one word stone- have different colors (multi-colored)

To make it easier to remember properties stones you and I will fill out a hint diagram (turns attention to the board).

Do you think our diagram can conditionally display the first property stone(rainbow because it has different colors). Invite the child to insert this sign into the table.

What can you tell us about your stone? (Show the stone to everyone - children's answers)

Right, the stones are different because.... children's answers (it is big, heavy, multi-colored, rough, has sharp edges and blunt, smooth...) they have different colors, sizes, shapes.

-Answer my question: If we squeeze a stone in one hand and dough in the other, what will happen? (children's answers)

Let's test our assumptions, take any stone in one hand and play dough in the other, squeeze hard and see what happens?

Why did the dough change its shape? The dough is soft and pliable.

What's wrong stone happened?. Nothing is correct, the stone has not changed its shape, it is solid.

Guys, we have learned one more property stones -Hardness.

Go (Sabina) think and find the card that can help us mark the property of hardness on the diagram (hard as nails).That's right, this picture means hardness.

Let's continue talking about stones...

What do you think will happen to stone and a wooden block if we put them in the water? (Listen to the children’s full answers).

Why do you think so (children's reasoning)

I suggest you see for yourself, with the help of experience, whether you are right or wrong. Move the experimental plate towards you and lower a stone and a block of wood there at the same time.

What happened? (answers: The wooden block did not sink, it floats on the surface, and the stone sank to the bottom.)

Why didn't the wooden block sink? (it's light).

Why did the stone drown? (The stone sank because it was heavy)

How can you and I formulate this property? stone....

-(Ivan)....will find us the following symbol.

How did you determine that "Weight"(seek complete and detailed answers).

It’s true that a stone is not a feather - it won’t be carried away by the wind, stones sink in water.

But there are huge mountains that consist of stones.

You could become like a mountain (yeah (children become a pyramid)

Physical education minute.

There is a mountain of an old woman (raise your arms straight up, placing your palms together)

To the top of the sky. (reach up on tiptoes)

The wind blows around her (fans themselves with their hands)

The rain pours down on her (shak hands alternately)

The mountain suffers and loses stones. (put palms to cheeks and shake head)

And every day and every night

(children run away)

And every day and every night (the teacher touches some children who must run away)

The pebbles are rolling and rolling away. (children run away)

The pebbles rolled and from then on

There's nothing left of this mountain (children point to an empty space).

Come to me and find the largest stone on my table.

Do you think it is strong or fragile?

How can we check? (are trying: stand on a stone, hit a stone against a stone)

Let's try to hit stone with a hammer...

Who wants to try (provide the opportunity to try it for those who have not tested the strength stone)

What can be concluded? (durable stones, it does not crumble, does not break)

Yes. The stone remained unharmed!

Go (Stepan) choose the last picture for the diagram.

Explain why you chose the castle? (it's durable)

Yes, the lock allows you to firmly close the doors.

What do you think, can a stone be a helper to a person? (children's answers about using stone)

I want to show you, and you will help me tell where a person can use stones, walk over and position yourself in front of the screen, wherever you feel comfortable on a chair or on the floor.

Slide2 - Stones are found underground, on its surface and in bodies of water.

Slide 3- In ancient times, people used stones as a tool and for hunting.

Slide4- Later stones began to decorate clothes.

Slide5 – The stones served as decoration, a talisman and just a toy.

Slide6 –From stones they have made and are now making items for home interiors.

Slide7 - Used stones in the construction of roads, for sidewalks, stairs and platforms, it cannot be replaced

Slide8 -It is widely used by summer residents in their garden plots, creating such beauty.

Slide9 - Stone is indispensable in the construction of monuments. Do you recognize this monument? Yes, this is a monument to the Heroes of the Fatherland.

Slide 10 – In the construction of fountains.

Slide 11 - Few people know that salt is also a stone. It is underground and is mined. There are entire salt mountains in the world.

Slide 12 – Hurray! Eat edible stones.

Slide 13 – Stones Nowadays they even get treatment!

Slide 14 -And also stones You can collect them in collections and bring them back from your travels!

Slide15 – Stones beautiful, unusual and interesting.

I'll show you my collection of jewelry from stones. (collection show).

Did you enjoy visiting me?

As a souvenir, I’m giving you a hint diagram, it won’t be difficult for you to tell about what you learned about today stones.

For today I say goodbye and look forward to visiting you again (leave to music) the curtain closes.

III The final part of the OOD.

Teacher 1 comes out.

Here are my guys! Don't you want to tell me anything?

What do you have in your hands?

Who can tell you what new you learned today?

What interesting thing happened to you?

Tell me about the diagram, what does it mean?

Summing up classes with differentiated assessment of the result.

To study the life of our planet, one has to travel a lot, endure difficulties and hardships; This requires courage, strong will, and endurance.

Knowledge of a wide variety is even more necessary: ​​about atoms and planets, about living organisms and natural waters, about minerals and the activities of mankind.

And you also have to love stone, an amazing creation of nature. It is not endowed with life, but nevertheless it is born, grows, fights for existence, has its relatives, companions and enemies in the underworld... Not endowed with life in our ordinary understanding, the stone lives in its own way, unusually and unusually compared to animals or plants.

The life of stones takes place mainly in the depths of the earth, at the bottom of the seas, in caves, in the fiery vents of volcanoes... It is not easy to know it. However, for those who learn to penetrate with thought into the hidden depths of the planet, a wonderful world opens up. He said this well:« It is a great thing to reach into the depths of the earth with the mind, where nature forbids the hands and eyes to reach, to wander with reflections in the underworld, to penetrate through narrow chasms with reasoning, and in the eternal night to bring darkened things and deeds to sunny clarity».

Such an excellent ability to “bring to solar clarity” the secrets of the underworld was fully possessed.

For scientific and popular science books, this is very difficult to achieve due to the constant variability and constant movement of scientific thought. New facts are revealed, new ideas appear, and previous works lose their novelty and become hopelessly old.

And so “Entertaining Mineralogy,” which appeared in 1928, was reprinted a dozen times.Millions of copies of the book have been published, but the demand for it is still great.

And now the book is read with interest and amazes with the abundance of interesting and deep thoughts.

The same applies to his other popular books “Entertaining Geochemistry”, “Travels for a Stone”, “Memories of a Stone”. But they don’t look outdated at all, and getting to know them brings a lot of pleasure and benefit.

“I became a passionate lover of mineralogy when I was only six years old. We spent every summer in the Crimea, and as a boy I crawled along the rocks near the Simferopol highway, near the house in which we lived. In these rocks, in separate veins, I came across rock crystal - stone transparent, like water, very hard and unyielding, which I had difficulty picking out of the hard rock with a penknife. Even now I remember how we, children, were especially delighted with rock crystal in crystals, transparent, as if polished “precious stones” that we were. carefully wrapped in cotton wool and called “talianchiki.” We ourselves found these stones, polished by nature, in the rock, and when the elders doubted that we ourselves had found them, and thought that these stones had been polished by the hand of man, we proudly objected to them.”

In the summer of 1912 he worked in the Southern Urals near Zlatoust and Chelyabinsk. As is customary among geologists, I collected a lot of information about these regions in advance. Not only about the local minerals and geological conditions, but also about the history of the development and study of natural resources.
He spent many hours in the Ilmen forests, moving from mine to mine. I talked with old-timers, stone miners - miners. For a long time, sometimes until nightfall, he sat on the dumps, studying crystals of topaz, quartz, amazonite, and mica. He persistently unraveled the beautiful and mysterious “writings of nature.” He noted the peculiarities of Ural minerals. I intensively thought through possible options for the formation of such minerals and their combinations.

“I have long dreamed of looking at a mountain made of a magnet and visiting our new metallurgical giant. Finally, I found time, and early in the morning in Sverdlovsk I climb into the cabin of a small plane. We fly south along the Ural chains, now diving under the clouds, now smoothly and quietly rising above the sea of ​​clouds, from which in some places the black islands of the heights of the main chain can be seen. Soon Chelyabinsk will be behind us with a beautiful view of its construction, then to the right the jagged Aleksandrovskaya Hill, Yurma, and again everything will be shrouded in madly rushing clouds.
We slowly climb from ledge to ledge of Mount Atach, the main peak, and already from afar I see the famous faces of Magnitnaya Mountain sparkling like metal. Here, pure magnetic iron ore comes to the very surface of the earth, and it is mined by open-pit mining.
Soon you enter the realm of solid magnetite; Do not take a watch with you: its thin steel hands will become magnetized and the watch will no longer show the time correctly. In some places, polar-magnetic blocks string together pieces and dust particles of iron ore in clusters; you can hang nails on other, more strongly magnetized pieces, even your small penknife."

Nowadays, nature conservation is given great importance. A hundred years ago, when I began to study these problems, they were unexpected even for many scientists. It seemed necessary to conquer nature, quickly develop its wealth, regardless of losses, and, above all, use the most valuable resources. They say that several years, or even decades, will pass, the country will flourish and become stronger, people will begin to live richly, and then it will be permissible to deal with such secondary issues as nature conservation.
In 1920, when the civil war had not yet ended and the country’s economy was in critical condition, on the initiative of A.E. Fersman, the mining department presented to the Soviet government a project for creating the world’s first mineralogical reserve in the Southern Urals. It would seem that the project is completely untimely. However, it was reviewed by the government and signed by V.I. Lenin on May 14, 1920. warmly welcomed the creation

“Probably, the reader has heard about reserves in which endangered animals or plants are protected. This is how the bison is protected in our Caucasian Reserve, in the Askania-Nova Reserve - the remains of virgin feather grass steppe, in the vicinity of Voronezh - the remains of oak forests, etc. But why? set up a reserve for stones? It turns out that they also need to be protected in the same way as bison and oaks. Unfortunately, in these cases, a reserve often comes to the rescue too late. Such a reserve is set up in our Southern Urals in the famous Ilmen Mountains, near the Miass station. . Which stone lover has not heard of the Ilmen Mountains? Any mineralogy textbook talks about them, listing the rarest minerals or noting the beauty of the pale blue Amazonian stone. Which mineralogist does not dream of visiting this mineralogical “paradise”, the only one on earth in terms of the richness, diversity and originality of its mineral deposits?

“I will try to tell you in more detail about its attractions. The Amber Room is the only work in the world made of amber from the early 18th century. The Amber Room is a real miracle. You are amazed not only by the value of the material, the skillful carving and elegance of the forms, but also by the beautiful, sometimes dark, sometimes light, but always warm tone of amber, which gives the whole room inexpressible beauty. All the walls of the hall are completely covered with mosaics; pieces of polished amber, uneven in shape and size, of an almost uniform yellowish-brown color. The walls are divided into fields by carved relief frames made of amber, the middle of which is occupied by four Roman mosaic landscapes with allegorical images of the four human senses. These mosaic paintings of colored stones were inserted into embossed amber frames under Elizabeth. What a ton of work went into creating this one-of-a-kind piece!”

Girls reading books will be able to get to know their “best friends - diamonds” better:

“Here are necklaces of beautifully cut diamonds sparkling - like drops of water, clear, with colorful tints, slightly cold stones of hot India, desert Africa and tropical thickets of Brazil. I imagine the deposits of South Africa - huge tubes, going into unknown depths, filled with dark rock. Thousands of trailers on steel ropes lifted from the depths the rock mined by the slave labor of the Kaffirs; large fields through which the rock was transported on trolleys. Then huge factories, large vats of complex washing machines - and here is a sparkling gem on trembling canvases, greased with lard. And all around - the southern, tropical sun, black figures of exhausted workers, elegant houses of diamond companies. On large tables covered with tablecloths, whole heaps of sparkling stones, laid out in many hundreds of varieties, separately clean large crystals for cutting, separately stones painted yellow, pink or green, and finally stones for cutting glass, beads, doubles and other."

For lovers of other jewelry:

"Every stone in a jewelry display tells its own story, and a whole book would not be enough to tell it all. But if you ever stop at a jewelry display in a museum, remember what was written on these pages, and among the trinkets and toys of the past, look for traces of distant centuries, those deepest natural phenomena that I spoke about. With this past gone forever, do not forget about the future of the precious stone. It is not in the generous wealth of luxury and colors, not in the passion for rarity that we see the enormous future of the solid, indestructible, indelible. , the eternal stone. It’s not for nothing that on good watches we often read a small inscription through a magnifying glass: fifteen rubies; this means that the small axes of the watch rotate on even smaller ruby ​​stands, which are not defeated by time, for they themselves invariably and persistently measure it.”

Alexander Evgenievich asks his readers insidious questions: “Is it possible to eat stones? How do minerals grow? Is it possible to determine the age of a stone? Are all stones equally hard? Can all stones be broken with a hammer, or can some of them be cut with scissors? Does the stone change in time? different seasons? Does it live like an annual plant, or is it more like a perennial coniferous tree? Maybe, like a bird, it changes its colorful outfit or, like a snake, it sheds its skin every year? And he certainly answers them himself.

“I really want to captivate you into this world, I want you to begin to be interested in mountains and quarries, mines and mines, so that you begin to collect collections of minerals, so that you want to go with us from the city, further away, to the flow of the river, to its high rocky shores, to the tops of mountains or the rocky shores of the sea, to where they break stone, mine sand or blast ore. There we will find something to do everywhere, and in the dead rocks, sands and stones we will learn to read the great laws of nature according to which the universe is built." .

Looking at mountain peaks, taiga expanses, boulders or beautiful crystals, being in our right mind, we are unlikely to complain about their “obsolescence” or everydayness. Every natural phenomenon is fraught with an abyss of problems, food for the mind and feelings. It depends only on ourselves what we can draw from this bottomless treasury: either the most superficial, ordinary, dull impressions, or deep experiences, ideas, images.
So in creativity this feature of “works of nature” is manifested - at least partially. If we resort to the usual image, we can say: the works are multifaceted and reflect the life of nature with great completeness and multicoloredness.

Introduction. Often, when I come home from a walk, there are a lot of different stones in my pockets. They can be found anywhere: on the streets of the city, on the banks of the Sura River and Lake Navat, in a stream and even in a grandmother’s garden. And I wondered where they come from? They are so different from each other, but we call them all with one word - stone. But, probably, each of them has its own name? We definitely need to figure this out.

Goal and objectives:

1. Study the stones that surround us.
2. Find out as much as possible about the stones (what they are, their names, stories associated with the stones, how they appeared on Earth).
3. Collect a collection of stones on the streets of the city and at home.
4. Begin to write a description of the rocks and minerals in the collection.
5. Conduct an experiment (grow salt crystals on a branch).

Study time: 2007–2008.

Research methodology.

• Review literature on this topic;
• Excursions around the city and beyond;
• Collecting a collection of stones (stone in nature, in construction, at home, at school);
• Drawing up a description of the collection;
• Photographing interesting objects;
• Creation of an author's presentation.

Relevance of the study.

Traveling into the world of stone is a very exciting experience. Studying stones, you definitely go into the distant past of our planet and the area where I live.

There are countless different stones on Earth: beautiful and not so beautiful, of different colors and shapes. Beauty! I admire the stones and think: after all, each of them contains some kind of secret and a hundred mysteries. And not all of them have probably been revealed and solved. And how much these stones have seen in their lifetime!

So I wanted to know what secrets they conceal. How many are there, how do they differ from each other, the history of their appearance on Earth, and what benefits do stones bring to people?

I tried to find answers to these and other questions in my work.

1. Main part

All the stones that surround us are called rocks. Rocks consist of individual minerals, sometimes just one, but more often of several minerals at once.

Each mineral has its own special properties, its own name, its own composition, and appearance. A mineral in a rock is like a person in a crowd: it has its own face, character, clothes.

1.1. The first stone

I found this stone in my grandmother's yard. It turned out to be a heat stone.

This combustible stone heats up in the fire, fills with a red flame, hot, like fire, and burns itself.

For a long time, the fire-stone in the hearth of a person's home saved warmth in cold weather. With his combustible power, he learned to move cars. People have learned to convert the fiery warmth of the firestone into electricity. A heat-stone, a light-stone, but a seemingly modest dark stone, you would never say that there is so much warmth and light hidden in it. This is, of course, coal.

Where did he come from?

It all started many, many years ago, when the Earth was a kingdom of forests and swamps. Stepping on the forests, the swamp water flooded the entire land around the giant trees, washed away their roots and the trees died. And the giants fell into the muddy swamp slurry. Over a long period of time, a thick layer of compacted plants accumulates underground. What thousands of years ago was powerful vegetation turns into a brown mass - peat. Compressed by layers of earth, peat gradually hardens, turns to stone and turns into stone - brown coal. And if brown coal underground is very strongly compressed, it gradually turns into black coal, and then into anthracite.

In addition to heat and energy, coal has given us many other gifts: plastic toys, medicinal and aromatic substances, car tires, fishing nets, paints and varnishes.

This is how strong, beautiful and rainbow it is, this black modest stone, extracted from the air and light by ancient plants. Isn't it a miracle!

1.2. Stone two

There is such a riddle: “He will be born in water, but he is afraid of water.” I found this amazing stone in a salt shaker at home. I tried to pick it up, but it crumbled into small grains. I was upset, but my mother calmed me down and said that it was a real stone. Of course, it was ordinary salt - the mineral is called halite.

A person cannot live without salt. Salt helps our body process food. Whatever you want, our body should receive about twenty grams of salt per day. Not necessarily, of course, in its pure form. Can be with water or food. Without salt, a person can die.

Since ancient times, salt has been valued by humans more than any beautiful gem. You can live without a precious trinket, but you cannot live without salt. And a slab of salt was considered a real treasure. In China, for example, salt bars were used as money.

The well-known word “soldier” also tells us that salt was once money. There really is something salty in the sound of the word. It turns out that the soldiers guarded the salt when it had to be transported from one country to another. And they paid the guards with nothing more than salt. In the old days, soldiers were called soldiers who served for salt pay.

The well-known proverb “Don’t slurp salt” tells us about the value of salt. The fact is that even at festive feasts, salt was served only to the most honored guests. And the simpler guests just left - “Without a sip.”

Today we don’t even think about salt. People managed to discover huge natural salt pantries. Now there is enough of it for food and for other important things.

There is a huge amount of salt on Earth. But that’s why she’s a treasure, to hide from people. Salt is indeed hidden both in the earth (entire salt mountains) and in the water (lakes and seas).

1.3. Stone three

I found this colorful stone near the road. In the World Geography encyclopedia, in a guide for a novice geologist, I discovered my stranger - granite.

Granite! In this very word one can hear firmness and strength. But this mighty stone got its name from the word “grain”. “Granum” - this is how the words “grain”, “grain”, “grain” sound in the ancient language - Latin. The name “granite” comes from the word “granum”.

If you look closely at polished granite, you will see that it is entirely made up of stone grains. And they are not only different in color, they are also of different types. Granite consists mainly of three stones - sparkling quartz, dark mica, and colorful feldspar. The most abundant feldspar in granite is what gives it its color. If the spar is reddish, then the granite seems reddish to us, if the spar is gray, then the granite is gray...

Granite is a powerful building material.

1.4. The fourth stone

My mother pointed me to this stone. But it doesn’t look like a stone at all, I was surprised. Every schoolchild is familiar with this stone; we write it on the board. Of course it's chalk.

Once upon a time there lived in the ancient sea-ocean small creatures - crustaceans, sea snails and other sea creatures. Were there many of them in the sea-ocean? And like in a cloud of drops. And each droplet-snail had its own house - a shell. And the whole ocean was full of these living clouds, like the sky before the rain.

And, indeed, it was “raining” from shells that had outlived their useful life to the bottom of the sea. For thousands of years, the shower of shells continued without interruption. And along with the shells, skeletons of various sea creatures, shells of crustaceans, and fragments of buildings made by small sea inhabitants sank to the bottom. All this is mixed and compacted under water into a real stone - shell rock. Many years have passed, and where there was a seabed, there is now dry land. After all, the surface of the Earth is always in motion - rising, falling, gathering into huge folds... this happens very slowly. Many, many years ago, a thick blanket of shells covered the seabed, and today we can travel through mountains that are entirely made of white stone - limestone.

On land, these sea limestones undergo various changes over a long period of time, and our assistant chalk is finally formed.

1.5. Fifth stone

And this colorful toy in the school workshop, and the house in which I live, and the warm village stove, and the rare beautiful dishes - all these “pies” baked from the same stone dough. Amazing dough!

It loves both fire and water equally. It mixes well in water and becomes soft and pliable. You can make a simple brick from it, an intricate figurine, or elegant dishes - such a soft stone.

But put a product made from this dough into the fire - it will not burn, will not crumble, but, on the contrary, will only become stronger. This stone is called clay. Clay is also used in medicine and cosmetology.

Conclusions.

I learned a lot of new and interesting things about the wonderful and mysterious world of stone. I made five exciting trips (I visited an ancient mighty forest, at the bottom of an ancient sea), learned where stones come from, what they are called and what they look like, and what benefits they bring to people. I collected a collection of stones that I met in the city, at school, a lady, on a river. Some of them were described. Some stones were born, like me, in the Chuvash Republic (peat, clay, sand), while others came to us from other regions of Russia (granite, chalk, salt, coal). I traveled and took photographs a lot. I shared my discoveries with my classmates and friends. At the next stage of my work, I will continue to collect a collection of stones, but I will divide the stones into two groups: stones from the Chuvash Republic and stones brought to us from other places.

Bibliography

1. Large series of knowledge. Planet Earth. – M.: Book World LLC, 2004.
2. Klenov A.S. For kids about minerals. - M.: “Pedagogy-Press”, 1996.
3. Carol Varley, Lisa Miles. World Geography. Encyclopedia. – M.: “ROSMAN”, 1997.
4. I explore the world: Children's encyclopedia: Geography / Author-comp. V.A. Markin. – M.: LLC Publishing House AST-LTD, 1997.

Appendix No. 1. Description of the collection of rocks and minerals

Rock description plan:

1. What color is the rock?
2. Are there separate layers in the rock?
3. Are there fossils there?
4. Does the rock feel rough or smooth to the touch?
5. Does it consist of small grains?
6. How strong and hard is the rock?
7. How is it used by humans?

The rock is dark brown in color, loose, plant remains are visible. It is used as fuel and fertilizer in gardens and fields.	White in color, smooth to the touch, homogeneous, fragile, breaks quickly. It is used for writing on a blackboard, in construction, and in the spring it is used to whiten tree trunks.
COAL The breed is black, shiny, rough to the touch, hard, durable. Used as fuel. It is also used to make: plastics, tires, paints, varnishes...	SHELL ROCK Light-colored rock, fossils (mollusk shells) are very clearly visible, hard, but not durable, rough. Used in construction.
ANTHRACITE Black, shiny rock, smooth, strong and hard, smooth to the touch, lighter than coal, homogeneous. Used as fuel.	It comes in different colors from dark to light, it is smooth, dry and hard, but in water it becomes soft and homogeneous. It is used in construction, and you can also sculpt anything from clay: figurines, dishes, whistles...
ROCK SALT The mineral is white, but can be multi-colored, the crystal is smooth to the touch, has a square shape, is not very durable, and dissolves in water. We eat salt every day, and it also kills harmful microbes.	A loose rock that comes in different colors; here on Sura it is yellowish in color and consists of small round grains. Used in construction, we love to sunbathe on the sand by the river in summer.
Granular rock, reddish or gray in color, very hard and durable, rough to the touch. It is used as a building material: it is used to decorate roads, embankments, and buildings. They also make monuments.	The breed is black, soft, fragile, smooth, writes well on paper, and is uniform. We write and draw with it, and fireproof vessels are made from it. And graphite powder is an excellent soft lubricant for rubbing surfaces.

Appendix No. 2. Comparative analysis of minerals and rocks

	COAL	CHALK	CLAY	COLD SALT	GRANITE
By color	black	white	Brown, grey, blue,	White with shine	Multi-colored – red, gray
By appearance, properties	Homogeneous, solid	Homogeneous, soft, loose, writes well on the board	Becomes soft in water, becomes hard when dried	Forms crystals, breaks easily, and dissolves in water	Consists of grains of different types and colors: light quartz, dark mica, colored feldspar, very hard and strong