This week, we "dug" into fossils during science time with an inquiry activity. We began with a quick read of Earth Science Rocks: Fossils for some introduction information about how fossils are formed as well as how paleontologists record their findings in the fossil record.
For our activity, each group was assigned one book from the North American Dinosaurs series (also on Epic). They were asked to be paleontologists, recording distinctive physical adaptations and other interesting facts about their dinosaur on the fossil record.
After each group completed a fossil record on their own dinosaur, they sent the record to me. I compiled all of their notes into one class fossil record (mimicking the database of information shared among real paleontologists.)
The next day, six fossil evidence pictures (of the dinosaurs each group studied) were hidden around the room. The students had to locate each picture and take a photo of it on their iPad. Then they used the evidence in the fossil record they created as a class to figure out the names of each dinosaur.
Every single group was able to identify the correct names of all 6 dinos using the information from the fossil record! This means that the evidence documented in the fossil record was written in detail and that the students were able to use that evidence to draw a conclusion about the photos!