Fossils Activity

Fossils Lesson

Science – 4th Grade

Standard 4 Objective 1

Describe Utah fossils and explain how they were formed.

By the end of the lesson students will…

• Be able to identify three types of fossils
• Explain how fossils were formed.

Fossils

Think back a billion years ago. The land now called Utah was in and out of water of ancient lakes. The water helped form many of the beautiful land formations of Utah like the Uintah Mountains, the layer rocks of Mount Timpanogos, the colors of Bryce Canyon, the red sandstones of Arches and Zion National Parks. Utah’s land has been host to every type of animal life known to man. Fossils can tell a story of the ever-changing varieties of plant and animal life and can tell the story of Utah’s past. Almost all fossils are found in sedimentary rocks. Since sedimentary rock is deposited in layers, the oldest rocks are at the bottom of a sequence, and the youngest are on the top. Fossils in the lower layers tell us about what life was like long ago. There are three ways in which fossils are formed in sedimentary rock.

There are three types of fossils:

• Mineral Replacement Fossils

• Impression Fossils

• Preserved Organisms

Reflective questions

1. Compare the three types of fossils. How are the alike? How are they different?

2. What would happen if we did not have fossils to study?

3. How could you use fossils to study the past?

Rubric

Fossils Assignment Rubric
	Needs Improvement 1	Fair 2	Excellent 3
Deep Thinking	thought and not connection to the information presented	Start of expanding on information presented and making connections	Builds off information presented to expand thought and predict what could happen creatively and logically
Spelling Accuracy	More than three spelling errors	One or two spelling errors	No spelling errors
Sentence Arrangement	No complete sentences	One to two complete sentences	Three or more complete sentences