Geosciences Industries-92373 Mineral Identification Kit, Rock Samples for Studying Geology and Earth Science (Set of 20)

Samples are of good quality for the price. Made teaching basic minerals to cub scouts a breeze.

Bought this for a homeschooling project for Earth Science. Nice size and variety of rocks and minerals. The documentation the set comes with isn't great, so I used external resources to make the lesson more enjoyable for my student. Overall very pleased.

I purchased this mineral set to use with my 4th grade students. The mineral set itself is of fine quality, from what I can tell. However, I am extremely disappointed with the packaging. Upon opening my purchase, two minerals were on top of the box they came in. My biotite was split in two pieces. All of the minerals were all over the box, some have clearly been through a tough time as there were lots of broken bits form several of the more fragile minerals. It doesn't seem like it would be asking to much to add a little extra tape to ensure this expensive "box of rocks" is delivered in one piece. Very disappointed in the packaging, but overall happy with the actual product.

Bought this for my god son, I had one and thought he would like it. Then my niece came over and claimed it for herself. I bought two

All of the pieces were large and fun to go over with my son who is 9. Though he mainly wanted to just hold each mineral instead of actually testing and figuring out each one. We had a magnifying glass that he enjoyed looking at them through.

I bought this to be an educational project. I intentionally chose this kit over others because of the ID cards which could be used for future identification of other minerals not found in the kit. But in doing the project, my father and I discovered that the cards were punched incorrectly, thus making it impossible to ID some of the specimens correctly. Give this to a kid, and they're going to be in tears. We couldn't figure out why were getting every rock wrong, until we finally worked backwards from the answer key. We took the bright yellow sulfur sample, and selected the feature "yellow" from the "streak test" (a test in which you scrape the rock on a surface, then see what color its scrapings are). The cards ruled out sulfur as a possibility, even though we were entering the right answer. Also, there are two different magnetic minerals in the kit--according to the cards, there is only one. With the cards punched wrong, you can't possibly do the project or use the cards for future reference. The only good news is that you're not as dumb as you think you are when you're getting every answer wrong. Additional problems are that some of the tests require things that no one has in their home: Bunsen burner, science lab chemicals, etc.. Definitely not a project you want your kid to do without attentive adult supervision. Lots of geology terms that are unexplained. The instructions have been photocopied too many times and some words are impossible to read. Way outdated, since they tell you that you're being just like the FBI, who are still using punch cards to identify suspects in crimes. Actually, the FBI moved on from punch cards a long time ago....don't bother with this kit.

I bought this for a geology class that my daughter is taking online. She needed 4 specific rocks that are in this set for an experiment. When it arrived, the box containing the rocks was already ripped. The first thing I had to do was tape it together. The inside looks old. A couple of the rocks were out of place. For $40, the box shouldn't be broken upon arrival and it should seem more pristine. This comes across as a used or returned product, even if it isn't.

Wanted something for my 10 yr old grandson. Has several hands on experiments to do