Dirt and Rocks left by comets and planets are floating in space. These are commonly known as meteoroids. Once these meteoroids enter the earth's atmosphere they burn up. We now call them a meteor (shooting star). It does not matter what it was called or what it was in space once it falls through our earths atmosphere it is called a meteorite. Most of the time these meteoroids burn up or land in the ocean. Every once in a while they land on land and can range in size from very small to very large.
What are meteorites made from? The easiest way to describe it is into three classifications of stony, iron and stony-iron. We decided to look at stony meteorites with chondrules (mineral deposit) and stony meteorites that do not contain chondrules which are called achondrites.
Our meteorites were made from marshmallows, chocolate and pecans. We made some yummy 'rocks' to eat after our school work: Rocky Road, Brownies with large chunks and Pecan Clusters.
We sliced them so we can observe the inside of each 'meteorite'.
Next, we drew pictures of our cross-section of the meteorite and labeled if the stony meteorite had was a chondrule or achondrites.
Once we were done with our drawings - we ate the meteorites! Our favorite was our Pecan Clusters.
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Yummy! My boys would love this homeschooling activity!
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