We're going to use a hand lens to examine some sand. We will pour a little sand onto paper plates and onto black paper. Let's use tweezers to sort the colors of sand, and then use the Color Sorting Key to identify some of the minerals that are commonly found in sand.

Check it out! Take a look at the composition of this sandstone rock, and compare it with the samples of sand. Looks just like the sandstone is made of sand, doesn't it!

Sand, of course, is ground-up rock; rock is made of various combinations of minerals, and when it is turned into sand and stirred by water, wind, and creatures, it becomes a mixture of all the minerals of which the rocks were made. After a few zillion years, some of the sand gets buried, and the pressure and heat then turn the sand into rocks again. However, these rocks are not the same as the individual, different (from each other) rocks from which the sand was ground.

Next time you go to the beach, look closely at the sand, then look around for rocks close to the shore. You will see that there are several kinds of rocks; not just one kind.

When you have your sand granules sorted, try to decide what kinds of rocks from which each color of sand may have come.