Trilobites Lesson Plans

Students explore the parts of a trilobite. In this fossils lesson plan, students investigate a real trilobite fossil and identify the body parts, Students label a diagram of a trilobite.

Students make trilobite masks out of paper plates.

Learners create mock fossil records based on current scientific theories about prehistory. By learning about what fossil records teach us about different prehistoric time periods, students gain a greater understanding of theories of prehistory in general.

Students generate hypotheses about dinosaurs from observing patterns in dinosaur footprints. They view and discuss a video showing the ways paleontologists collect data from fossils then pair up to evaluate pictures of dinosaur footprints to determine what the dinosaurs were doing at the time the footprints were made.

Students recall prior knowledge of the process of fossilization. In this fossils lesson, students first create and at a later date, recover fossils. Students understand the painstaking process of recovering a fossil. Students recover and identify the fossil they are uncovering.

Seventh graders investigate the history of Earth by creating a geologic time scale.  In this Earth History lesson, 7th graders practice sequencing events in their life as a way to get familiar with creating a time scale.  Students complete their sequencing event handout and present a poster to the class of a specific era in time.

Springboard your fourth and fifth graders into the study geologic time. They will complete 7 activities to learn about geologic time and the topics most often associated with it: astronomy, creation, planet formation, volcanology, chemistry, and ecology. They will also explore the concept of visualizing geologic time throughout the activities.

Students acquire a general knowledge of fossils and paleontology, the study of evidence of life in the past and identify the major invertebrate groups (phyla) commonly found in the fossil record.

Students are taken on a simulated "voyage" backward in time, to the beginning of our planet. They "witness" that beginning, the origin of life, and a number of key events from then to the present.

Students research and investigate woolly mammoths in order to determine what caused their extinction in Utah. They research how Utah changed in the time after the mammoth disappeared.