Testing Minerals

Testing Minerals: Grade 4 Science Worksheet

How can you tell one mineral from another? Students learn that rocks are made of minerals and meet five mineral properties: color, luster, streak, hardness, and cleavage. They match three simple tests to the property each one shows, then read a mineral chart for quartz (in Florida beach sand), calcite (in Florida limestone), and pyrite.

Key Science Vocabulary

• mineral: a natural solid that rocks are made of
• luster: how a mineral shines
• streak: the color of a mineral’s powder on a tile
• hardness: how easily a mineral can be scratched
• cleavage: how a mineral breaks along flat sides

What Students Do

• Read a short teach box that names each mineral property in kid words
• Part A: three test pictures (streak tile, nail scratch, shine); circle the property
• Part B: a real mineral chart; three circle questions
• Answer key with a teacher note

Standards

Florida SC.4.E.6.2: Identify the physical properties of common earth-forming minerals, including hardness, color, luster, cleavage, and streak color, and recognize the role of minerals in the formation of rocks. Builds toward NGSS MS-ESS2-1 (the rock cycle).

Where It Fits in Grades 3 to 8

Grade 4 is where students first test minerals like a geologist. In middle school, the same properties help them identify minerals in the rock cycle and understand where useful materials come from.

Teaching Tip

Have students try to scratch a penny with a steel nail, then the nail with the penny. Only the harder one leaves a scratch, which makes the hardness test in Part A easy to picture. Prints clearly in black and white and takes 8 to 10 minutes.