Adventures at Dry Creek
Other Lessons

Major concepts emphasized in this Research Lab are:

Gain an understanding of paleontological field work, stratigraphy, geologic time, and fossils.

Conduct a scientific investigation by collecting, categorizing, identifying and analyzing fossils.

Use a key to identify fossils.

Read and analyze data presented in a chart and graph.

Use fossil data to develop multiple hypotheses about life in the past.

Make inferences about life in the past using direct and indirect evidence.

Communicate findings with others for review.

The following is a list of suggested lessons that can be used to enhance and extend the concepts emphasized in Adventures at Dry Creek.

Determining the Age of Rocks and Fossils: This activity will help students to better understand the basic principles used to determine the age of rocks and fossils.

Dino-Facts: Students will gain an understanding of paleontological field work, and work cooperatively to develop and support their own theories.

Fossilization and Adaptation: Activities in Paleontology: Students evaluate the importance of fossils to our knowledge of past life, identify conditions necessary for fossilization, construct a possible scenario for formation of fossils, understand how organisms are adapted to their environments, and understand the relationships of modern and ancient communities with their environments.

Sequencing Time: This activity will help students to understand the methods used by geologists in creating the Geologic Time Scale.

What Came First: Students will gain an understanding of deep time and how events in the Earth's history relate to one another.

Where Can I See the Sea: Students learn how the pieces of the fossil puzzle fit together to allow paleontologists to imagine the earth as it was millions of years ago.

Who's on First: Students learn how how paleontologists use fossils to give relative dates to rock strata.