Rock Tales: The Story Beneath Our Feet
What stories are hiding beneath our feet? How do rocks and landscapes carry the memory of billions of years?
This year at Ohmapi, we’ll be listening to stories that have been billions of years in the making…tales of rocks, crystals, and fossils. With over 32 weeks of intentional learning, we’ll dig deep into Earth’s beginnings and marvel at volcanoes, shifting continents, and the incredible power of time!
Sometimes the quietest things, like the stones beneath our feet, have the most to say.
Exploring Earth and Its Stories
Have you ever wondered how a salmon’s journey is shaped by the rivers and rocks it swims past? Why tomatoes originated in the Americas? Why are there so many earthquakes in California and not in Tennessee? Why the Colorado River is at the bottom of a very deep canyon called the Grand Canyon and the Mississippi River is not in a canyon at all? Why are there seashells at the top of the Himalayas? This year, we will explore these questions (and many more) as we dig deep into earth science.
Our handwork will weave directly into our geology studies. Children will carve, shape, and create with natural materials, just as humans have done for millennia, discovering how stone, clay, and earth connect art with science. Every stitch, sketch, and sculpture will be a way of honoring the stories the Earth has been writing since long before us.
Did you know cairns, or a stack of rocks, have been used by humans for thousands of years to mark trails, honor sacred sites, and even serve as memorials? These stone markers can be found on mountaintops, coastlines, and deserts all over the world, guiding travelers and holding cultural meaning across civilizations.
Together, we’ll dig deep, look close, and uncover the tales hidden in every stone, every stream, and every footprint.
Family Engagement
Curiosity prompt: Take a walk outside. Can you find a rock that looks unusual or tells a story? What might it have witnessed over the years? Did it once sit at the bottom of the ocean? Was it pushed up by a mountain-forming force? Encourage your child to imagine the rock’s “autobiography.”
Granite, one of the most common rocks in the Earth’s crust, is also one of the oldest—some granite formations are more than 3 billion years old! Because it is so strong and resistant to erosion, granite has been treasured by humans for thousands of years. In Ancient Egypt, it was quarried in Aswan and used to build temples, obelisks, and the inner chambers of pyramids, with Pharaoh Khufu’s sarcophagus inside the Great Pyramid of Giza carved entirely from granite. In India, the 11th-century Brihadeeswarar Temple in Tamil Nadu was constructed almost entirely of granite, featuring a massive dome carved from a single block weighing around 80 tons. A marvel of engineering. In China, granite has long been used for bridges, imperial buildings, the Ming Tombs, and even sections of the Great Wall, prized for its durability. In North America, the granite of the Black Hills was, and remains, a sacred place to the Lakota Sioux and other Indigenous Nations. Long before colonizers carved faces into it, the land itself was honored as a living, spiritual landscape that holds ancestral connection, ceremony, and profound meaning.
Granite’s story reminds us that rocks are more than just stone; they are witnesses to history, carriers of culture, and keepers of memory. The next time you spot a striking rock on your walk, imagine the stories it might hold…stories set in stone, waiting for us to listen.
Gems and Their Energetic Qualities
We’ll also marvel at crystals and gems this year, exploring not just their beauty but also the meanings cultures across the world have given them. Here are four common stones and their qualities:
Granite – A stone of strength and grounding; reminds us of resilience and stability.
Amethyst – Calms the mind, brings clarity, and supports balance.
Rose Quartz – Associated with love, compassion, and emotional healing.
Citrine – Known as a stone of joy and abundance, often linked with creativity and optimism.
A Story… About a Rock
One sunny afternoon in the Ohmapi Forest, Daisy the Dog was out for a walk. She sniffed the air, scratched at the ground, and then—clink! Her paw hit something hard.
“Hmm,” Daisy said, tilting her head. “You don’t feel like a stick. You don’t smell like a bone. Who are you?”
The object beneath her paw let out a long sigh. “I am a rock,” it said in a deep, gravelly voice.
Daisy’s ears perked. A talking rock? Now that was unusual.
“You’ve been here a long time, haven’t you?” she asked.
The rock chuckled. “Longer than you can imagine. I was born in fire, carried by rivers, pressed under mountains, and polished by glaciers. I’ve seen oceans rise and fall, forests come and go, creatures big and small.”
Daisy’s eyes widened. “You must have the best stories in the whole forest!”
“Oh, I do,” the rock rumbled. “But you’ll need to dig deep and look close to hear them.”
And so, Daisy decided she would spend the year listening to the rocks—because sometimes the oldest, quietest things have the most to say.
Discovering Together
This year, our students will:
Explore Earth’s beginnings: from stardust to planet formation.
Walk through 4.6 billion years of history on a geologic timeline.
Get to know rocks up close, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic, through collecting, sorting, and identifying samples.
Build models to understand layers of the Earth, plate tectonics, and volcanoes.
Search for fossils and imagine the ancient worlds they reveal.
Marvel at crystals and gems while learning how minerals form.
Venture into the field on rockhounding trips to discover Earth’s treasures in streams, quarries, and hillsides.
At Ohmapi, we learn from nature. We take the time to wonder, question, and notice. This year’s experiential learning will help our students sink into the beauty of geology, while our studies remind us that the ground beneath our feet is alive with history.
Here’s to a year of rock tales, stone secrets, and the joy of discovering Earth’s story—one crystal at a time.
Join Us
We invite you to follow our journey, it’s going to rock!
Follow us on Instagram: @the_ohmapi_nature_project
Visit our Website & Blog: theohmapinatureproject.com
For more learning at home with Ohmapi: theohmapistore.com