Erica DeMeritt lead a program about sand for the May 1st Junior Rockhounds. She started off the meeting with a presentation about how sand is made by the erosion of the surrounding rocks and minerals by the actions of the wind, rain, floods, and freezing water. This is what causes the sand to be different colors and textures depending on its surrounding landscape. Erica showed us how to make sand cards out of index cards and tape. But the coolest part was looking at the sand under the microscope where they could see all the individual colors that made up the sand. Erica had sand from different beaches in the United States, as well as sand from Belize, Spain, Italy, Mexico, and Greece. Thank you, Erica, for your time and sharing with us.
Bill Hart also stopped by and brought his sand collection and shared this with the children. My favorite was the red sand from Canada which was made garnets. Bill, thank you for coming by and sharing not only your sand collection but a really cool way of displaying it.

Afterwards we made sand mandalas using colored sand and peeling off the protective paper and sprinkling colored sand to make the pattern. And we had some small vials they could put sand in to take home.