| Grade Level | System Requirement | Product Number |
|---|---|---|
| Grades 3-6 | Apple 128K | A220 |
| Geological research is students’ focus as they collect plant and animal fossils for a museum. Digging through layers of sedimentary rock, kids learn geographic history through the plants and animals that lived during different eras. | ||
Introduction
Fossil Hunter is a discovery-learning simulation that capitalizes on the natural curiosity of students and encourages them to use their curiosity while developing appropriate scientific process skills or thinking skills and to learn appropriate basic scientific content.
Fossil Hunter is part of MECC’s Science Inquiry Collection. Like all the packages in this collection, Fossil Hunter features a strong process orientation while presenting material that is firmly anchored in the elementary and junior high school science curriculum.
In Fossil Hunter, students are challenged to discover, identify, and determine the age of fossils by investigating the strata of rock in which they are found. As students explore each layer of fossil-filled rock, they will discover a sequence of plant and animal forms. As they discover each fossil, students carefully observe, record, and compare its characteristics, including the layer of substrate in which the fossil is found. The information collected will enable students to draw conclusions and make predictions about fossils, their characteristics, and their location.
Earth science concepts addressed by or related to Fossil Hunter include:
- the geology of the earth is very old;
- the creation of sedimentary rock takes place over long periods of time;
- some plants and animals included in the sedimentary process become fossilized;
- earth history is divided into units based on changes in the fossil record;
- the age of a fossil can be estimated by analyzing the rock in which it is found; and
- the characteristics of a fossil and the rock in which it is found provide evidence of where and how a creature lived, as well as the natural events that took place around it.
Science process skills developed by Fossil Hunter include:
- observing;
- communicating;
- comparing;
- organizing;
- relating;
- inferring;
- and estimating.
Manual
Not yet available (In Production)