Lesson Plan: Fossil Evidence
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to interpret evidence provided by fossils to show that living things and the environment have changed over time.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- define fossils as the remains of living things or traces of living things that lived very long ago,
- explain the difference between trace fossils and preserved remains,
- explain how a fossil forms,
- identify traits in plant and animal fossils,
- link fossils to plants and animals alive today,
- interpret evidence provided by fossils to show that living things have changed over time, sometimes in response to climate changes,
- interpret evidence provided by fossils to show that the environment has changed over time.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- how living things can respond to seasonal change, natural events, and the activity of humans and other organisms,
- how the inheritance of different traits leads to variation,
- the fact that an adaptation is a trait that helps a living thing survive in an environment,
- the formation of fossils in sedimentary rocks.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- evolution by natural selection.
