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Dinosaurs Before Dark
In this paleontology matching instructional activity, students match clues related to dinosaurs to scrambled words. Twelve words and clues are given.
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Fossil Impressions of Ancient Life
Young scholars make a mold using Plaster of Paris and then make a cast using that same mold. They pick a fossil and describe how it looks. They write a fictionalized story about its life, or burial. (
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Paleontologist: Can You Dig It?
Students investigate what a paleontologist does. They participate in a dinosaur dig, write a story, and explore the Dinosaur Dig website to view and discuss photos of a real dinosaur dig.
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Join the Dinosaur Age
Students role-play and complete various activities associated with dinosaurs and paleontology. They listen to the book, "Dinosaur Bones," participate in a simulated dig site, explore various websites, sing dinosaur songs, and create clay...
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Dinosaur Daze
Students review, create, and inquire about dinosaurs, the fossilization process, and paleontology by successfully completing each of six classroom stations.
Project SMART
Dinosaur Trek
Second graders investigate dinosaurs. They explore various websites, submit questions to a paleontologist online, construct cut and paste model dinosaur skeletons, develop a graph to compare dinosaurs, and label pictures from online...
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Archeological Finds
Young scholars explore archeology and it contributions to human history. They write a magazine article describing the discovery of a dig.
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Footprint Detectives: Making Inferences Using Dinosaur Trackways
Students analyze and discuss footprints and dinosaur tracks. They listen to books about paleontologists, create and analyze their own trackways using black paper and chalk, examine the data, and form hypotheses about footprints and...
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Hide and Seek with Bones: A Mapping and Scaling Comparison
Students examine and simulate how paleontologists map objects. They hide and find objects using a grid to map the objects' placements.
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Animal Tracks - Walking and Running
Students, using paper and water, make tracks and record the time needed to make them. They compare tracks made walking and running to determine the speed of the animal.
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Chesapeake Bay Fossils/Geology
Students define and investigate paleontology, research geological history of the Chesapeake Bay, review geological time line, and identify fossils of the Chesapeake Bay.
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White Glue Fossils: Casts, Molds, and Impressions
Students make impressions and molds in clay and them make casts with glue. After the glue dries students remove their fossils.
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Types of Dinosaurs
Students complete puzzles of dinosaurs. They compare each piece of the puzzle to a fossil and simulate a scientist's role in learning about dinosaurs.
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Fossils
Students act as paleontologists to discover who a mystery guest to the classroom was. They do not know the identity of the guest but infer the identity from items left behind in the classroom. They make inferences from dinosaur fossils.
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Xenosmilus
Students play the roles of paleontologists on a dig. They unearth a few fossils at a time and attempt to reconstruct the animal the fossils represent.
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Cookie Paleontologists
Students become cookie paleontologists. In this paleontology lesson, students try to excavate whole chocolate chips from a chocolate chip cookie without breaking the cookie. They use toothpicks and paintbrushes to do it.
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Branches of Science
In this science worksheet, students locate and identify the various branches of science as they are named. There are 36 words/phrases located in the puzzle.
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Biology: Howler Monkeys Tell All
Students examine a PBS special about howler monkeys as an introduction to scientific forensic investigative methods. In groups, they conduct a host of experiments containing clues which point to discovery. By challenging assumptions,...
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Fossils
Fourth graders act as paleontologists and attempt to figure out the environment where various fossils would have existed. They explain how fossils can be used to make inferences about past life, climate, geology, and environments.
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Excavation Dig
Learners engage in a role-play of a dinosaur excavation dig. They dig through sand to locate buried bones and then discuss the ethics of destroying buildings and other property to get at the fossil remains.
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Dig It!
Second graders complete various activities about dinosaurs and fossils. They conduct Internet research, participate in a sandbox dinosaur fossil dig, and create a computer slideshow presentation using information they found on various...
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Dig This
Fifth graders explore the work of paleontologists and the life of dinosaurs and create a sculpture of the bones of a Stegosaurus. The sculpture was then buried and used by other classes for a dig.
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Introduction to Paleontology Lab
Students engage in a lab which introduces them to fossils and paleontology. They examine eleven numbered boxes containing fossils which are related to the questions on this lab then answer questions on a lab sheet imbedded in this plan.
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Dino Traces
Young scholars are introduced to the type of evidence that is found at a typical dinosaur dig. They create rubbing casts of bone impressions on paper and, using bones, identify dinosaurs.