Sand has always been a guiding force in my life. I've always been around it, and always been fascinated by it. As I attended various NSTA conventions, one of the most popular sessions was the one involving sand samples. People do all kinds of things with sand! At the NSTA National Convention in St. Louis, I was introduced to a great lab created by a teacher in Virginia. He had students analyze sand from Maine to Florida, and attempt to create a hypothesis on why the sand changed as you went from north to south. I was hooked! I sent out a request on several lists  requesting sand from the Atlantic Coast. Sand came in from all over the country! The lab was a huge success. The lab is now gone. At least my ability to teach it is gone because I'm retired, but the idea still lives. I want to make this a virtual lab accessible to all.

 If you send me a small sample of sand, no bigger than a teabag,  I will create a page for it. The page will include three images of the sand. The first should be yours. Send me a digital image of the site showing the sand and the background. The second and third images will be mine. I will take two  photographs of the sand and post them. One of the images will be a general image of the sand as you would see it on a beach. The second image will be a macro photograph of approximately 9X.  The macro images will all be of the same magnification, so they can be used for comparisons. I will also include a reflectance spectrum graph of the sample.

I want this site to become an educational tool. Everything about the site will be consistent. All of the images will be taken with the same degree of magnification. Therefore you could do a study on  sample sizes. By clicking on the thumbnail image that appears on the country or state page, you can get access to a larger version. Feel free to use these.