Patricia Levy

August 9, 2000

Topic: Fossils

Context: Seward Park High School, Manhattan on the Lower East Side. I chose this lesson to test my students prior knowledge about fossils and to help them think and reason as they figure out how the different fossils could have been formed.

Key Idea: 3 – Individual organisms and species change over time.

Performance Indicator: 3.1

Major Understanding: 3.1e

Classroom Environment: The class will work in groups of 3 – 4 to do this activity.

Assessing Students’ Prior Knowledge: As a "Do Now" question, I will ask the students how we know so much about dinosaurs if they became extinct before humans evolved.

Motivation: I will show them some models of dinosaurs and ask them how people were able to find their remains.

Introduction of Understanding: I will show them the beginning of a video showing fossil finds.

Development of Understanding: Different examples of fossils will be distributed to the different groups. Each group will try to identify the fossil and explain how the item became fossilized. Examples of fossils are imprints, petrified wood, fossilized bones, etc.

Check Points: The students will chose a reporter who will come up to the front of the room and present a fossil and explain what it is and how it was formed. The other students will be free to ask questions and add information to the presentation.

1. Students can try to make their own fossils with flour, water and salt in a pan.

2. A trip to the American Museum of Natural History is essential.

The Living Environment, Rick Hallman, Amsco

A video about fossils