Fossil Excavation

Students explore how scientists examine the past and use rock layers with fossils to understand the past.  In this excavation lesson students divide into groups and complete an activity. 

In this excavation procedure worksheet, students determine the roles of group members for an excavation of a sample box containing buried bones. They complete 9 short answer questions before beginning the excavation.

Young paleontologists roll up their sleeves and get a little dirty in this hands-on unit on dinosaurs. Over the course of these seven lessons young scientists learn about these giant reptiles while excavating and assembling a T-rex...

In this professions in paleantology instructional activity, 3rd graders match jobs with six descriptions, then find eleven tools used in searching for fossils in a word search, answers included.

A paleontologist finds a fossil, but then what happens? An engaging video explains what happens to fossils once they make it back to the lab. It then demonstrates three different ways of excavating the fossil from the matrix. 

Fossils ... from space? Science scholars discover evidence in a limestone quarry that helped researchers learn about a meteor shower that lasted hundreds of thousands of years through an interesting video from Brain Scoop's Fossils and...

Students research fossils. In this guided reading lesson, students explore informational texts to research fossil formation. Students create an anticipation guide and hypothesize about dinosaur extinction.

Students discover how palaeontologists conduct a dig for fossils and how they interpret the age of the fossils. In small groups, they prepare a "dig site" consisting of bones, rocks and soil layered in a cardboard box. They switch boxes...

Students study the fossils in Argentina and why it is a good place to find them.  In this dinosaurs lesson students learn about the recent dinosaur excavations. 

Third graders understand the process by which fossils and rocks are excavated. For this fossil and rock lesson, 3rd graders explore the job of the paleontologist in a podcast.