UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Students can get cool rocks, minerals and fossils and learn more about nature at the annual Minerals Junior Education Day. The educational program, co-sponsored by Penn State's College of Earth and Minerals Sciences Museum and Art Gallery, is designed to encourage the interest of students in grades one through eight in the earth sciences.
Minerals Junior Education Day will be held April 1, at the Central Pennsylvania Institute of Science and Technology in Pleasant Gap, Pennsylvania. Starting at 9:30 a.m., parents can accompany their children to a variety of stations with demonstrations, activities and discussions with experts.
Stations this year include gold panning; gemstone cutting and polishing; fossil shells and bones; a sphere-grinding machine; crystal structure and formation; ultraviolet fluorescence and more. Students will receive a mineral, crystal or fossil specimen related to each topic, building a collection as they visit all the stations.
The cost is $5 per child; parents attend free. Registration in advance is required by March 28. For more information, visit www.nittanymineral.org/juniored.htm.