Does your budding geologist pick up rocks everywhere you go? Have a buckets and bins of rocks at home?

I just came across a terrific program where children can learn more about rocks and minerals and help scientists with their research. Your child can choose a rock and send it to scientists at Arizona State University for analysis.

According to the Rock Around the World website (http://ratw.asu.edu/), you may send a rock 2 to 6 inches in size, although the preferred size is about 4 inches long. It should also be clean and free of dirt. The “About the Program” link (http://ratw.asu.edu/program.html) will give you more details and the address to send the rock.

Be sure to spend time to see the rocks that have already been sent in from your area and from around the world, and check out the rock of the month.

Tomorrow we will meet the scientist who started this program in “Meet the Scientist Monday.”

red rocks