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Zara's Platform Fossil Journal

Use a student's train-platform field journal and fossil data to describe long-ago living things and environments.

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
14 questions
Classroom-ready

Details

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

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students use fossil evidence to describe living things from long ago.
Students use fossil data to infer and compare environments from long ago.
Students distinguish evidence-based claims from claims that need more evidence.

How to use

Read the field journal together and study both graphs before students answer. Ask students to point to a fossil clue when they make an inference.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

3-LS4-1

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

Preview

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Name Date

Zara's Platform Fossil Journal

Use fossil evidence to picture a place from long ago.

Read the field journal

Read Zara's notes. Use the graphs to answer the questions.

Notes from Maple Junction Platform

Day 1: The train platform at Maple Junction is being repaired. The platform is dry today, and trains pass beside it. A geologist showed me a rock bed under one edge of the platform. The rock formed long before the station was built.

Day 2: We examined an equal-sized piece from Rock Bed A. We counted each clear fossil impression. The piece had shell impressions, fish-scale impressions, fern-leaf impressions, and root traces.

Day 3: We examined an equal-sized piece from Rock Bed B farther along the platform. It had the same kinds of possible fossil clues. The counts were different. A fossil is evidence of a living thing or its activity from long ago, but a fossil count does not tell us the exact number of animals or plants that lived there.