Exploring Fossils and Fossil Formations

1. Exploring Fossils and Fossil Formations Lindsey Peele

2. Exploring Fossils and Fossil Formations11/19/2013Page 17 Ice Breaker: Get in teams of 2. Answer the following question and write it in your interactive notebook: What is our team name? Why are we testing ice cores?

3. Mountain of Ice Activity Ice cores can reveal a lot about past climates. Tell students they will be analyzing chemical concentrations in ice core field data from the U.S. International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE) in this activity. Organize students into teams of two and provide each team with copies of the "Secrets of the Ice," "Ice Core Data," and "Graphing Ice Core Data" student handouts and other materials.

4. Procedures After teams have prepared their graphs, have each team work together to graph all three ions (sodium, chloride, and sulfate ions) on their chart using the pencil colors you assign for each ion. Students may want to use a ruler to help them graph points. Have students graph the data, making sure that each team starts with the top-most depth, 37.270 meters, and that all teams begin graphing at the same left-most point on their graphs. Tell students to round off each data point to the nearest whole number.

5. Procedures When the data have been graphed, refer students to the information about the ions on their "Ice Core Data" student handout. Have them use the information to label their graphs with estimated years or seasons. (Year demarcations are not evenly spaced because some years have more data points than others.) After graphing is completed, discuss each team's interpretations of the data. Do all interpretations agree? Why or why not? What additional questions do students have about the data?

6. Procedures As an extension, have students repeat the activity, but this time only plotting every third data point, or every fifth point. Would students draw the same conclusions? How much confidence would they have in their results?

7. I think, I know, I wonder Fossil Activity Split paper in 3 pieces (draw lines) 1st block- I think………(what do you think about fossils/fossil formation) 2ndblock- I know……(what do you know about fossils/fossil formation) 3rd block- I wonder…..(what do you wonder about fossils/fossil formation)

8. Fossils and Studying Earth’s Past—The Key Ideas Fossils provide evidence of how life and environmental conditions have changed. Scientists study sedimentary rock layers and the fossils that many of them contain, and can piece together a detailed history of the Earth, including the history of life on the Earth. Fossils are the traces or remains of once-living organisms, and they form in many different ways. The oldest known rocks on the Earth are just over four billion years old.

9. Fossils and Studying Earth’s Past— Common Misconceptions • Dinosaurs and ancient humans coexisted. • Reality: We know from fossils that dinosaurs became extinct long before the advent of homo sapiens. • Fossils are pieces of dead animals and plants. • Reality: Fossils are only the impression or cast of the original living thing. The actual living parts decay away, but their shape is permanently recorded in the rock as it hardens.

10. Fossils and Studying Earth’s Past— Common Misconceptions • All fossils can be dated with radiometric dating techniques . • Reality: Most fossils—and the sedimentary rocks they occur in—cannot be dated with radiometric techniques. This is because sedimentary rocks consist of recycled materials and thus cannot represent the steady decay of radiogenic isotopes from original material.

11. Exploring Fossils and Fossil Formations Exploration: Colossal Fossil Jostle