The Fairy-Land of Science · Lecture VIII, part 1 · Part 8: Lecture VIII: The history of a piece of coal
22. A piece of coal, and a trip down a coal mine
Goal: Your child can say that coal is made from plants that lived long ago, and can make a fossil-style leaf print.
You'll need
- A lump of coal if you can get one (from a rock shop or museum gift shop), or a picture of coal
- A stick of artist's charcoal or a burnt stick from a cold campfire (baked wood, as Buckley describes)
- Play dough or modeling clay, and a fern frond or leafy sprig
- Science notebook and pencils
What's in the book
Pages 171 to 178. The thin layers in a lump of coal, like the edges of the pages of a book; how charcoal-makers bake wood; an imaginary trip down a coal mine near Newcastle in an iron cage; fern prints and reed-like stems in the roof; fossil roots in the clay floor; and "coal-balls" of stone that keep the plants of the coal perfectly.
The lesson, step by step
Hook question
Show the coal (or a picture).
SayThis black stone burns. Buckley says it was once alive. What could it have been?
Let your child guess, then read page 172.
Our work to-day is to relate the history of this black lump; to learn what it is, what it has been, and what it will be.
Look closely
Look at the coal with the magnifying glass for fine lines
which run across so close together as to look like the edges of the leaves of a book.
Buckley says coal splits easily along these lines, and you may find a black dust like charcoal between them. Rub the charcoal on paper: it is made by baking wood without letting it burn away. Wash hands after.
Down the mine
Read pages 173 and 174 aloud, slowly, like a story: old clothes, the iron cage, the tunnel with trucks and lamps. Look at Fig. 46 together: the layers of rock, with the coal like the filling of a sandwich.
You will recognize at once the marks of ferns (a), for they look like those you gather in the hedges of an ordinary country lane
Try it: make a fossil print
Flatten a slab of play dough. Press the fern or leaf firmly into it with your palm, then peel it off carefully. You have made a print like the fern marks in the roof of the mine. Look at Fig. 47 on page 175 to compare.
Roots in the floor
Read or tell pages 175 to 177. Fossil roots are found in the clay floor under the coal, so the plants grew right there. And coal-balls, stone lumps inside the coal, keep the old leaves and stems so well that scientists can slice them thin and see what the plants were.
Tell it back and check
Your child tells back the trip down the mine. Then ask:
1. What is coal made from?
2. What did the miners find in the roof of the mine?
3. How do we know the plants grew right where the coal is?
Draw it
Draw the coal "sandwich": a floor of clay with roots, a black layer of coal, and a roof of grey shale with fern prints.
Afterwards
Notice it this week: look for fossils in stone walls, paving stones or rocks at the beach; look for ferns and leaves pressed into mud after rain.
Tip
Coal mines are dangerous places; Buckley's trip is an imaginary one. If you live near a mining museum, many offer safe tours.
Answers to the book's problems
1. Plants that lived and died long ago, buried and pressed. 2. Prints of ferns and reed-like stems. 3. Their fossil roots are found in the clay floor right under the coal.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.