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Fossil kits

School:: University High School
Subject:: Science
Teacher:: Julie Tucker
: Wright, Conboy
Students Impacted:: 400
Grade:: 9-12
Date:: September 15, 2023

Investor

Thank you to the following investor for funding this grant.

FUTURES Foundation - $816.62

Impact to My Classroom

# of Students Impacted: 160

Students were able to have an amazing hands-on experience sorting through their fossil kits! They really got their hands dirty and felt like fossil hunters! There was enough kits to make a class set and plenty to have on hand when the fossils break in the future. Students sorted their fossil by a variety of characteristics and then compare their arrangements to other student's. This kind of critical thinking and collaboration is exactly what I try to do in my classroom.

These kits are perfect to give students an idea on how fossils form, what they look and feel like, and their role in understanding evolution. They can also compare modern organisms (shells, tree cuts) to ancient fossils. Because Florida was once underwater, it has a significant amount of oceanic fossils, similar to the ones in these kits. Students especially had fun sorting through shark teeth and trying to explain why there is such a variety of teeth and what that meant for ancient shark populations. Some students made connections from their own shark teeth-hunting experiences.

Thank you so much for this opportunity to bring science alive for my students and for many years to come!

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Students collaborating on what groups to sort the

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Comparing petrified wood to a recent cutting

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Organizing shark teeth by characteristics

Original Grant Overview

Goal

I want to provide each student with their own set of fossils to handle, observe and sort so they can identify a variety of characteristics about fossils.

What will be done with my students

We have a standard that says students need to describe how fossils are formed, investigate how fossils are found in different layers of rock, and investigate how fossils support evolutionary change. (SC.912.L.15.1) We can use these kits as soon as they arrive for the unit on the layers of the Earth and every year after, pending the pieces don't get broken or stolen over time.

I will provide students with their own fossil kit and have them make observations about the variety of fossils, then sort them based on their observed characteristics, compare how they sorted to show diversity in the scientific community and then compare and chart differences.

Students can use the fossils in a fossil sorting kit/shark teeth/petrified wood to apply scientific ideas to construct an explanation for the anatomical similarities and differences among modern organisms and between modern and fossil organisms to infer (make guesses about) evolutionary relationships. We can also use them to support research on how the environment has evolved, resulting in a variety of characteristics in different organisms.

Benefits to my students

Pictures of fossils just aren't the same as having tangible ones to look at! I want to provide students with a hands-on approach so they can observe all angles and features of a variety of fossils and make connections to things have changed throughout the history of our Earth. A class set would serve multiple classes and can be reused every year.