Fossils

The inspiration for this weeks lesson came from Beka. So thanks, Beka!

The initial interview: What do you know about fossils?
Seth: Things land in mud and stay there for a very long time and turn into fossils. Scientists study the fossils so they can know what lived in the dinosaur land.

Hannah: When they land in mud they stay there for a very long time, then the sand gets dry, then turns hard, and turns into rock, and makes a fossil.

We talked about the different ways fossils can be formed...under water, compressed by sand, etc. We talked about the different ways fossils are discovered...exposed by erosion, excavated by paleontologists, etc. We talked about what fossils can do to help us learn about our earth and the things that took place long ago. We read a book about Roy Chapman Andrews, to sort of put a face to the abstract nature of paleontology. This guy discovered the first dinosaur egg fossils in Mongolia in the 1920's...proving without a doubt that dinosaurs hatched from eggs. It is rumored that he was the inspiration for Indiana Jones...which appealed to Seth especially!

We have collected fossils over the years. Some family friends own property about an hour from here that is a treasure trove. The area was once a sea...millions of years ago, and now it is a mountain. The fossils are of shells, and there are hundreds of them! So we got out our fossil collection and looked at them and guessed what had happened to preserve them into fossils. We also talked a little about petrified wood.

Beka had said that she was going to make fossils with her kids, and so I decided I would try it, too. My sister had given me the vertebrae of a small animal (probably mouse)...thinking that my kids would think it was cool. It was perfect timing, because we decided to use it to make our "fossils". I mixed up a batch of plaster of paris, and we filled the bottoms of plastic cups with it. After it had hardened for about 10 minutes, we put the vertebrae and one of the shell fossils in it, leaving the impression. We let them harden for a few days, and they turned out awesome!

As part of our lesson, I wanted to take the kids to the dinosaur museum. A local man started to excavate his property to build on it, and discovered dinosaur footprints. The excavation stopped right then, and now, years later, a whole new kind of excavation goes on there! They have built the museum right around the site, leaving the fossils largely undisturbed. There are scientists and paleontologists right on site, and you can watch them working. It's not a large museum, by any means, but it's so cool for the kids to see what kinds of dinosaurs used to hang out around these parts! Here they are making some dinosaur rubbings.

An egg nest:

The new face of paleontology:

And the final interview:

Hannah: People didn't know if dinosaurs laid eggs until the scientists found dinosaur eggs. There are lots of fossils where the layers of rocks are (sedimentary rocks). Where we found our fossils used to be an ocean...that's why we have shells fossils.

Seth: A scientist (Andrews) found eggs and more fossils. Some animals got stuck in tar and died and it preserved them. They get covered up with sand and mud and turn into rock.

This was a fun one. It consumed a lot of our week, and the kids are still talking about it!

Next week: Volcanoes.