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Fossils at the High-Cloud Station

Use fossil observations from a mountain weather station to describe ancient living things and environments, compare evidence, and make careful claims.

Grade 3ScienceInteractive · Printable

Aligned to3-LS4-1

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What’s included

Single worksheet
Auto-graded online
1 NGSS standard
Printable answer key
15 questions
Classroom-ready

Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 3
Subject: Science
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Matching, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students use fossil clues to describe living things from long ago.
Students use fossil evidence to compare environments from long ago.
Students distinguish supported claims from claims that need more evidence.

How to use

Read the station report together, then have students use the graph and fossil records to answer the questions. Ask students to cite fossil clues in their written claims.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

3-LS4-1

Use fossils to describe living things and environments from long ago.

Preview

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Fossils at the High-Cloud Station

Use fossil evidence to describe places from long ago.

Read the station report

Read the report about the mountain weather station. Use the graph and the report to answer the questions.

Clues in the Rock Trays

The High-Cloud Weather Station sits on a dry, rocky mountain slope. During repairs, station workers found two trays of rock from below the station. The trays came from different layers. Talia and Omar recorded the fossil clues in each tray.

The Cloud Shelf tray came from the older layer. The students examined the same-sized piece of rock in three places and counted the fossil finds. The graph shows their combined counts. The guide says fish scales are parts of fish, shell fossils can come from water animals, and leaf fossils can show that plants lived nearby.

The Sunward Ledge tray came from a different layer. It held 1 fish-scale fossil, no shell fossils, 8 fern-leaf fossils, and 5 root traces. A root trace is a fossil mark left by a plant root in soil. The guide says root traces give evidence that a plant grew in the place where the soil formed. A trackway is a preserved path made by an animal moving across a surface.

The number of fossil finds is not the number of animals or plants that lived there. One animal or plant could leave several fossil pieces, and other living things may have left no fossils in the rock. The students want their display labels to say only what the evidence supports.