Practical Lesson For Kids About Fossils

Practical Lesson for Kids About Fossils

In the world of dinosaurs, there are so many things we can learn about the world if we just look underground. Fortunately, there are all sorts of things you can do with students in order to teach them the ways of fossils, what they are, how they are formed, and how you can continue to study them. Before beginning any lesson, it is important to make sure the students know what fossils are. Fossils are essentially remains of animals and plants from the past that provide us with a record of that time period. Some fossils are said to be millions and even billions of years old. One great way to get students to understand more about fossils is to have them make their own!
Get Your Items!
This lesson will show how fossils are formed and how they can be used to tell the age they were fossilized. The materials you should grab for this lesson are:

• A paper plate
• A plaster of Paris
• A natural object that you can use to make the fossil, such as a leaf, shell, flower, etc.

Once all these materials are gathered, that is where the fun can truly begin. You will go through different phases of finding out about fossils and then making your own.
Begin the Lesson!
To begin creating your fossil, first you should give each student a paper plate filled with the wet plaster of Paris. You will then have them put their natural objects that they brought to be fossilized into the plaster and press firmly. Once they can see that an impression has been made in the plaster, they can remove the natural object. You should make sure the students do not touch the plaster as it needs to harden and dry. As it’s drying, have them write down what they observe and what is going in in the plaster, such as if they used to see a hard impression but now it’s starting to disappear. When the plaster is finished drying, have students go back to looking at it and see what differences there are. Make sure they notice that even though a few details may be missing, they still know the age because of what COULD have been there or what MOST LIKELY was there. This is the same thought process that goes into real-life archelogy and how useful fossils can be. Although they do not even know it, they have just discovered the age of their fossil all by themselves!