Page 14 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

Mosaics were developed by the Romans and have been a popular means of practical decoration ever since. These modern mosaics are in Sydney, Australia (above), and Eureka, California (below).
Materials for ceramics making
The clay materials for common ceramics are simple
and widely available. The materials are also heavy and bulky. As a result, for most of history ceramics have been made near where they were needed. Often, each village had its own potter or brickmaker. Over the years, taking material from the ground to make ceramics has left suitable clay areas pockmarked with shallow pits.
Many people think of clay as a material made
of very small particles that, when wet, turns into a sticky mud. However, besides having small particles, clay also contains a range of platelike minerals, and they give clay special properties. These clay minerals
contain aluminium, silicon, and oxygen, and are called aluminosilicates.
A special form of clay mineral, called kaolinite, or china clay, is not found on the
Earth’s surface but underground near the sites of extinct volcanoes.
In places that were once magma chambers of volcanoes, hot fluids were able to decompose the granite rocks and turn them into clay.
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