ALEX | Alabama Learning Exchange

Fun With Fossils

Classroom Resource Information

Title:

Fun With Fossils

URL:

https://aptv.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/ess05.sci.ess.earthsys.lp_funfossils/fun-with-fossils/

Content Source:

PBS

Type:

Lesson/Unit Plan

Overview:

Fossils provide a valuable record of the plant and animal life and environmental conditions from millions, even billions of years ago. In this lesson, students create their own fossils and then use multimedia resources to learn how real fossils form and what scientists can learn from them.

Content Standard(s):

Science
SC2015 (2015)
Grade: 3

9 ) Analyze and interpret data from fossils (e.g., type, size, distribution) to provide evidence of organisms and the environments in which they lived long ago (e.g., marine fossils on dry land, tropical plant fossils in arctic areas, fossils of extinct organisms in any environment).

NAEP Framework

NAEP Statement::
E8.3: Fossils provide important evidence of how life and environmental conditions have changed in a given location.

NAEP Statement::
E8.4: Earth processes seen today, such as erosion and mountain building, make it possible to measure geologic time through methods such as observing rock sequences and using fossils to correlate the sequences at various locations.

Unpacked Content

Scientific And Engineering Practices:

Analyzing and Interpreting Data

Crosscutting Concepts: Scale, Proportion, and Quantity

Disciplinary Core Idea: Unity and Diversity

Evidence Of Student Attainment:

Students:

Analyze data from fossils to provide evidence of organisms and the environments in which they lived long ago.
Interpret data from fossils to provide evidence of organisms and the environments in which they lived long ago.
Provide evidence of organisms and the environments in which they lived long ago.

Teacher Vocabulary:

Analyze
Interpret
Data
Fossils
Type (mold fossils, cast fossils, trace fossils, true form fossils)
Size
Distribution
Evidence
Organisms
Environment
Extinct
Relationships

Knowledge:

Students know:

That fossils represent plants and animals that lived long ago.
The relationships between the fossils of organisms and the environments in which they lived.
The relationships between types of fossils and the current environments where similar organisms are found.
That some fossil represent organisms that lived long ago and have no modern counterparts.
The relationships between fossils of organisms that lived long ago and their modern counterparts.
The relationships between existing animals and the environments in which they currently live.

Skills:

Students are able to:

Organize data about fossils of animals and plants.
Identify and describe relationships in the data to make sense of fossils.
Interpret data to make sense of fossils.
Provide evidence based on data from fossils.

Understanding:

Students understand that:

Fossils provide evidence of organisms that lived long ago.
Features of fossils provide evidence of organisms that lived long ago and of what types of environments those organisms must have lived in.
Science assumes consistent patterns in natural systems (based on relationships found in the data).
Environments can look very different now than they did a long time ago.

AMSTI Resources:

AMSTI Module:
Heredity and Diversity

Alabama Alternate Achievement Standards

AAS Standard:
SCI.AAS.3.9- Match a fossil to the organism from which it was formed.

Tags:

animal, environment, fossil, plant

License Type:

Custom Permission Type
See Terms: https://aptv.pbslearningmedia.org/help/terms-of-use/
For full descriptions of license types and a guide to usage, visit :
https://creativecommons.org/licenses

Accessibility

Comments

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This resource provided by:

Author:

Stephanie Carver

ALEX Classroom Resource

Fun With Fossils