Glenwood Springs Colorado - Glenwood Caverns Teacher Guide

Teacher Guide

How to Use the Teacher Guide
Designed specifically for teachers, this section provides you with a series of lessons and activities for you to use in your classroom prior to your trip to the caverns. We are confident it will enhance your students' experience here at the cave.

Browse through these pages and select what might be useful for your class. Some material may need to be adapted to the level of your students. Feel free to reproduce any part of this section for use in an educational program.

The lessons and activities in this section are appealing primarily to elementary teachers; however, there are lessons appropriate for higher levels.

All files are in PDF format and require Adobe Acrobat to access. For a free version of Adobe Acrobat, click here.

Bat Lessons
Cave Conservation Lessons
Geology Lessons
Post Field Trip Activities

Bat Lessons

Bats and Birds
An activity comparing and contrasting bats and birds

Bat's Math Quiz
Solve bat-related math problems

Bat True/False Quiz
Differentiate between fact and fiction about bats

Going Batty
A game simulating the way a bat uses hearing to locate its prey.

Cave Conservation Lessons

Cave Conservation
A handout describing the importance of cave conservation

Don't Touch
Students will theorize concerning the effects skin oils have on speleothems by demonstrating how touching can damage a speleothem.

Let's Make Cave
An activity for students to demonstrate how to avoid touching artificial speleothems while using large motor skills to negotiate an obstacle course.

Rocks in Glenwood Caverns
An activity for students to determine the effects of taking souvenir rocks out of caves.

Geology Lessons

Create a Cave
An activity conceptualizing how water creates caves

Dissolving Limestone w/Acid
An activity investigating the effects of acid on different types of rocks

Growth of Speleothems
A handout describing how speleothems form

How Caves Form
A handout visually describing how caves form

Recipe for Speleothems
Construct a model to demonstrate the growth of speleothems and crystals via a charcoal garden

Rock Candy
An activity allowing students to observe crystalline growth

Speleothem Flash Cards
Practice learning the names of cave formations

Speleothem Match
Practice learning the names of cave formations

Post Field Trip Activities

Other Easy Activities
A series of other post field trip activities

What am I?
Given clues, students will recall things they learned during the field trip