Field Guides

Five-Minute Field Tests: Streak, Magnetism, and Heft

An educator packet of fast, cheap, decisive identification tests — streak plate, pocket magnet, and hand-weighing — with classroom demos.

Rock type: Mineral

For: Educators, Youth Programs

Three tests that cost almost nothing and settle most arguments: streak (hematite versus magnetite in one stroke), a pocket magnet, and learning to feel specific gravity by hand with galena as the anchor. Each test comes with a five-minute classroom demonstration script.

The classroom set-piece

Hand students one hematite and one magnetite — both black, both heavy, both confidently misidentified. One stroke each on a streak plate (red-brown versus black) and one pass with a magnet settles it in under a minute, and nobody forgets the lesson. The two identification sheets carry the full property tables.

Related in the library

Educator packet
All three demos run safely indoors; the streak-plate demo pairs with the identification sheet library.