Through five lessons, students are introduced to all facets of the rock cycle. Topics include rock and mineral types, material stresses and weathering, geologic time and fossil formation, the Earth's crust and tectonic plates, and soil formation and composition. Lessons are in the context of the related impact on humans in the form of roadway and tunnel design and construction, natural disasters, environmental site assessment for building structures, and measurement instrumentation and tools. Hands-on activities include experiencing tensional, compressional and shear material stress by using only the force of their hands to break bars of soap; preparing Jeopardy-type trivia questions/answers for a class game that reinforces their understanding of rocks and the rock cycle; creating their own fossils using melted chocolate; working within design constraints to design and build a model tunnel through a clay mountain; and soil sampling by creating their own tools, obtaining soil cores, documenting a log of the soil profile, and analyzing the findings to make engineering predictions.