The focus of this lesson is to provide an opportunity for children to develop oral language skills and to record their oral language to share with others.

This article describes a discovery of moss and ostracod fossils that led to a better understanding of Antarctica's climate history.

In this problem-based learning module, students will ‘dig’ for fossils in a digital environment, using the advanced graphing techniques of line-of-best-fit and piecewise functions to look for different kinds of trends in the health of the history of the earth.  They will apply this information to their knowledge of the laws of superposition and index fossils to form a complete analysis in the historical health as well as to predict where we are going in the future.

Becoming Human is an interactive documentary experience that tells the story of human origins. Multimedia, research and scholarship are presented to promote greater understanding of the course of human evolution. This site includes classroom materials, subject-designed exercises, games and activities to help make connections between the concepts that are presented and student learning. PDF versions of the resources may be downloaded from the site.

Students in a groups determine which everyday objects are related to each other.

This article describes common misconceptions held by elementary students about the history of the polar regions, fossils, and geologic time. The article provides ideas for formative assessment, teaching strategies, and the National Science Education Standards.

Chandra Garcia uses continent-shaped puzzle pieces to teach her students about continental drift. Working in small groups and using fossil evidence, students must work cooperatively and find consensus among themselves to build their arguments.

This lab activity is a paper fossil dig where students discover skeletal characteristics of humans, primates and hominids and are asked to make a short oral presentation to the class.

Open access textbook about paleontology for advanced high school and introductory level college students.https://www.digitalatlasofancientlife.org/learn/

This expository article for elementary students describes the dinosaurs that lived in polar regions as well as the adaptations that helped them survive in the dark and cold environment. Modified versions for younger grades are available.

This seminar will focus on dynamical change in biogeochemical cycles accompanying early animal evolution – beginning with the time of the earliest known microscopic animal fossils (~600 million years ago) and culminating (~100 million years later) with the rapid diversification of marine animals known as the “Cambrian explosion.” Recent work indicates that this period of intense biological evolution was both a cause and an effect of changes in global biogeochemical cycles. We will seek to identify and quantify such coevolutionary changes. Lectures and discussions will attempt to unite the perspectives of quantitative theory, organic geochemistry, and evolutionary biology.

In order to pass the paleobiology class, students must pass a critter test, which contains 25 different fossils. Students are asked to identify the fossils in as detailed a manner as possible.

A comprehensive Life Sciences textbook for Grade 10. This resource includes an interactive online textbook which can be read on personal computers, tablets, and mobile phones. Downloadable textbook and Teachers' Guide are available in PDF format. Topics covered include: Biological drawings, diagrams, charts and tables, Organic and Inorganic Compounds, Cells and Molecules, Plant and Animal Life Systems and Ecospheres, History of Life on Earth

This Web article is part of OLogy, where kids can collect virtual trading cards and create projects with them. Here they meet Deena Soris, who interviews the fossil of a Protoceratops. The more-than-20 questions answered by this dinosaur fossil include: You look fabulous. How old are you?How do scientists guess an extinct dinosaur's speed?Is it a thrill to have a frill?So what happened?One day you're happily munching away on thick, tough plants, the next you're history?How did you go from being a "Gobi sandwich" to becoming a fossil?Your bones were underground for 80 million years. How did the paleontologists find you?Once you got to the Museum, what happened? Are there any secrets you'd like to share with the folks at home?

This fun Web site is part of OLogy, where kids can collect virtual trading cards and create projects with them. Here, they learn about the Fighting Dinos fossil. The site opens with a vivid account of the dinosaurs' fight. "Explore the Fighting Dinos Through a Paleontologist's Eyes" gives students an up-close look at the fossil, with notes about the clues it's given scientists. "How Did They Die, Anyway?" presents details about the three theories that have been developed about how the fighting pair was buried alive. "Bone Up Your Fossils" challenges students to match up eight dinosaur fossil photos and descriptions.

This OLogy activity serves as a kid-friendly how-to manual about searching for fossils. In Not Just Any Rock Will Do, kids learn that fossils "hide out" in sedimentary rock and see examples of shale and sandstone. Do's and Don'ts for Fossil Hunters gives kids practical tips and a list of fossil-hunting supplies. In Fossils You May Find, there are photos of common invertebrate, vertebrate, and plant fossils to guide kids. Paleontology Clubs and Web Sites lists resources to help kids determine where to hunt for fossils. In Keeping a Field Journal, kids are shown an sample journal entry that points out the types of information they should record.

This article provides science content knowledge about forces that shape the Earth's surface: erosion by wind, water, and ice, volcanoes, earthquakes, and plate tectonics and how these forces affect Earth's polar regions.

In this classroom activity, middle school students simulate a "dinosaur dig." The activity opens with background information for teachers about fossils. Working in groups, students excavate fossil sites created in advance by the teacher, or other group of students, and try to reconstruct a chicken skeleton. The activity closes with a two-page student worksheet that directs students to diagram the fossil site and includes probing questions to help them decode their findings.

The American Museum of Natural History is home to the world's largest collection of vertebrate fossils, totaling nearly one million specimens. This Web site offers visitors a virtual visit to the Museum's famed Fossil Halls. It features seven sections along with a brief introduction, a Teacher's Guide, and information about the Museum's Division of Paleontology.

Students describe an unknown vertebrate fossil (or fossils, if multiple specimens are necessary for identification). This exercise is the culmination of their lab studies in the morphology of the vertebrate skeleton and requires them to integrate their ability to describe the morphology with research into the literature on their assigned animal. Students also become familiar with presentation of research through writing a formal scientific paper in the style of a particular journal.