Fossils Lesson Plan

*If you own any fossils, please feel free to bring them!*

**Please bring a hammer and maybe a small paint brush for your children to use in order to excavate "fossils" out of a Plaster of Paris block.**

1) Stretch & pray.

2) Read the flood account from the Bible (Genesis 7:10-8:5). Use pictures from The True Story of Noah's Ark by Tom Dooley. Have children do hand motions (patting thighs whenever we say "rain" and wiggle finger upwards whenever we say "flood") as we read.

3) Reinforce that the flood is responsible for how our earth looks today. Many scientists try to say otherwise. Fossils remind us of the seriousness of sin, but people try to suppress that truth with lies. (Romans 1)

4) (Do this outside) Demonstrate how the waters came up from the depths by filling to the top a round casserole dish with warm water (as the water under the earth is VERY hot), and then topping that off with 3 layers of plastic wrap. Secure with 3 rubber bands. Sprinkle with soil (=lithosphere) until it covers all of the plastic wrap (at least ¼ inch thick). Puncture the plastic wrap with a sharp knife and watch as the water bursts out from beneath and the soil caves in the middle to form oceans and the outsides are elevated as mountains. The flood burst apart the land into seven continents. Notice how eventually the soil starts to float together. Our continents are actually slowly moving toward each other and some of our mountains are slightly going down in elevation.
TEACHER/MOM 1: YOU WILL NEED: round casserole dish, hot water, plastic wrap, 3 rubber bands, sharp knife, and dirt

5) Show a picture of a geyser (like Old Faithful) and a picture of an ocean floor hot water vent. (I used a picture from The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor.) There is still some of this very hot water under our lithosphere.

6) Give each child a piece of Play-doh. Have them form it into a ball with a hollow center. We'll pretend that this is the earth before the flood. When the water burst out from the depths, our spherical earth shrunk a bit, causing the oceans to deepen and the mountains to rise. Have them squish the Play-doh ball in their hands and then observe how it now has various elevations.
TEACHER/MOM 2: YOU WILL NEED: 2 canisters of play-doh

7) Read My Creation Bible by Ken Ham.

8) Review where fossils are found (sedimentary rocks), how they were formed (the rapid build-up of sand and silt during the flood), and what they should remind us of (the seriousness of sin). Have 1 child lay on the ground. Child #1 represents the animals that are/were deep on the ocean floor (ammonites, cephalopods, etc.). Have Child #2 lay on top of child #1. Child #2 represents the animals that are on the upper part of the ocean. Child # 3 sits on top of child #2. Child #3 represents the flood waters. Where is the most pressure? Yes, Child #1 is getting the most pressure. That's why almost all of the fossils we find are from deep sea animals.

9) Make edible ammonites and
edible cephalopods. Check the links for great pictures of these (obviously not made by 8 year olds).

EXPLANATION: *Ignore the explanations on the website link. These are two fossils from ocean floor animals. There are lots of them on the bottom layers of fossil records because they were animals that lived at the bottom of the ocean. They were like child #1. If you have these fossils or pictures of these fossils, show them along with a picture of a nautilus (modern day ammonites) and a squid (modern day cephalopods). (We purchased our cephalopod and ammonite fossils from rock shop vendors at a city festival and a flea market for $3-$4 each.)

DIRECTIONS: Give each child two Little Smoky's, a breadstick, a crescent roll, and a knife. Children should make 4 slits in the top of the appetizer dogs to make tentacles. For the ammonite, the children should coil the breadstick around in a snail-type fashion and stick the appetizer dog at the end with the tentacles coming out. For the cephalopod the children should roll the dough into a cone shape and then put the appetizer dog at the larger end with the tentacles coming out. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 375 for 15 minutes.

TEACHER/MOM 3: YOU WILL NEED: (per group of 16 children): 1 package of Little Smoky's appetizer dogs, 2 packages of crescent roll dough (like Pillsbury crescent dough rolls), mustard and ketchup, 1 large baking sheet, 16 plastic kitchen knives, a picture of squid

TEACHER/MOM 4: YOU WILL NEED: (per group of 16 children): 1 package of Little Smoky's appetizer dogs, 2 packages of breadstick dough (like Pillsbury breadsticks), 2 packages of breadstick dough, 2 baking sheets, 16 plastic kitchen knives, a picture of a nautilus

10) Make fossil casts. (*Remember that fossils were formed quickly during the flood.) Explain the differences between a fossil and an imprint or cast. Give each child a piece of modeling clay to place on the plate and a shell. Have them grease the shell with a small amount of petroleum jelly. They should press the shell into the modeling clay and then gently remove it. Now you have an imprint. Give them each a spoonful of prepared plaster to fill into the imprint and smooth it out. Allow it to dry about 15 minutes before removing the modeling clay. Explain how and why paleontologists do this. The space left in the plaster by the object is the mold fossil.
TEACHER/MOM 1: YOU WILL NEED: a box of modeling clay, petroleum jelly (like Vaseline), & Plaster of Paris; per child: 1 small paper plate, 1 small seashell, 1 small paper cup (like the Dixie bathroom cups), 1 plastic spoons

11) Pass around some fossils and discuss how they were formed.
TEACHER/MOM 1: YOU WILL NEED: fossils from your fossil collection

12) Discuss what paleontologists do by making guesses about an object that has been destroyed. Have them verbally answer questions rather than draw an answer. The discussion below is from the above link.
PURPOSE: To demonstrate the difficulty of reliably reconstructing the past, by using what we see in the present, without an eyewitness.
PREPARATION: Find an object you don't mind destroying (an old tie or other item of clothing; a cup; a piece of hardware, etc. The more obscure or unusual the object, the better). Break (or tear) the object into pieces in a creative way (cut it with a saw; crush it with pliers; drop it out a window; drive the car over it). Choose a piece of the broken object to show to the children. (Be certain there is no way the children could know what the original object looked like).
DISCUSS
o What did the object look like before it was destroyed? (Have the student draw a picture of it.)
o How old is the object? (Ideally the teacher would know the exact date of manufacture or copyright.)
o Where did the object come from originally? (In the house/school; ideally, exactly where was it made.)
o How was the object used? (A common object with an uncommon use would be good, e.g., a cup or bowl that had been used as a planter).
o What color was the object? (Use something multi-colored if possible, and just give the student a piece with one color on it.)
o How was the object destroyed? (This should be the most interesting part! Be creative!)
POINT: Scientists often try to determine the answers to questions about the past using scant evidence from the present. For example, they may take a tooth and some bones and come up with their idea of how an animal or person looked and what it was like.* But they cannot know for sure what the creature or person looked like, how it behaved, or how or where it lived (e.g., the bones could have been transported by a flood from their original location to the location where they were found, for example). They cannot determine skin color, or even how old the bones are without making lots of assumptions. They also cannot determine exactly how the creature died. Perhaps it was already dead before it was buried. Perhaps it died in a flood. Perhaps another animal killed it. The worldview a scientist has chosen will influence his/her interpretation of the evidence. We can only know the truth if there was an eyewitness. The Bible records an eyewitness account of what happened in the beginning. God created all things and tells us about it in His Word!
TEACHER/MOM 2: YOU WILL NEED: 1 mystery item that has been seriously destroyed

13) (Do this outside.) Divide into 3 groups. Each group gets a baking sheet filled with sand. Inside the sand will be wooden dinosaur bones punched out of a dinosaur kit. As archeologists, have them "excavate" and find all the pieces and then become paleontologists and try to put the puzzle together. If you have older children, you can just give them half the bones and tell them, "This is what paleontologists do when they find dinosaur bones. Frequently they don't have a complete set and they have to guess what the animal looked like."
TEACHER/MOM 3: YOU WILL NEED: 1 paintbrush per child; per group of 4-5 children: 1 large baking sheet, 1 lb. of playground sand, 1 wooden dinosaur skeleton set (sold for $1 each at Michael's) [You could just do puzzle pieces if you can't find the dinosaur kit.], 1 ziplock bag

14) Excavate "fossils" out of plaster of Paris "limestone" block. To make "limestone" blocks, purchase 1 lb. of Plaster of Paris (from a hardware or craft store) per child. Mix up the plaster with water and pour it into disposable bowls. Push 3-4 plastic dinosaur toys into the plaster. Remove bowl after 30 minutes and let the plaster block dry at least a day before allowing the kids to smash it open with a hammer.
TEACHER/MOM 4: YOU WILL NEED: (per child) 1 plaster block (1 lb. of Plaster of Paris, 5 dinosaur toys, & 1 disposable bowl) & 1 ziplock bag (also a large, disposable pan and a paint stirring stick for mixing up the Plaster of Paris)

15) Let children eat cephalopods and ammonites and drink water.
TEACHER/MOM 1: YOU WILL NEED: (per child) 1 small cups for water & 1 napkin or plate

16) 5 Minute Review of what we learned.

*Send home a "Petrifaction Kit": 2 pieces of kitchen sponge and a sandwich bag filled with Epsom Salts.

Include these directions and explanation: Petrify a sponge by cutting 2 into a bone shape. Leave one out for comparison. Fill a cup with hot water & stir in Epsom salts until no more will dissolve. Add some food coloring. Put the sponge into water & set it in an undisturbed place for a few days. The sponge will become fossilized. All living things have holes in them just like the sponge has holes in it. Water with lots of minerals seep into holes found in natural items. Minerals cling to sides of holes. When the water dries up, the minerals crystallize in the holes replacing the original materials with what rotted away. Try to set your fossilized sponge on fire and see what happens.

TEACHER/MOM 2: YOU WILL NEED: (per child) 1 sandwich bag pre-filled with Epsom salts (sold in the pharmacy department) and 2 pieces of kitchen sponge, 1 copy of above directions