Instructional Materials in Paleontology

Instructional Materials in Paleontology

Below are the CLN "Theme Pages" which focus on specific topics within Paleontology. CLN's theme pages are collections of useful Internet educational resources within a narrow curricular topic and contain links to two types of information. Students and teachers will find curricular resources (information, content...) to help them learn about this topic. In addition, there are links to instructional materials (lesson plans) which will help teachers provide instruction in this theme.

Dinosaur Theme Page

General Paleontology Resources

Here are a number of links to other Internet resources which contain information and/or other links related to Paleontology. Please read our disclaimer.

Access Excellence

The following lesson plans on fossils are available in the Access Excellence collection.

Fossil Hunt Elementary students gain an understanding of the problem/puzzle solving aspects to putting together a fossil record by having to reconstruct a torn-up paperback book.
Paleoanthropology High school students engage in four classroom activities to better understand practical aspects to the study of Paleoanthropology.

AskERIC Lesson Plans - Science: Natural History

Six lesson plans on dinosaurs and fossils.

Earth Science Lesson Plans

This University of Cincinnati collection has several lesson plans on fossils. There's one lesson at the very top of the page and then a series of links further down under the heading "Fossils and Earth's History."

Fossils

In this lesson plan, middle school students simulate what paleontologists do when they discover, excavate and identify a fossil.

Grade 4 Science Core Unit: Fossils and Rocks

Within this curriculum guide from Saskatchewan Education, a unit on fossils gives students "another perspective of geologic time, allowing them to examine evidence of plants and animals which existed on the Earth a long time ago."

Learning from the Fossil Record

Over 30 sets of cross curricular K-12 classroom learning activities from the Museum of Paleontology at the University of California (Berkeley). In addition to the activities, there is a matrix tying the activities to grades/subjects, as geological time scale, academic articles, and advice on how to tap into the paleontology resources on the WWW.

No Bones About It

In this lesson plan, grade 6-12 students use a NY Times article as a starting point to "act as paleontologists, examining pictures of dinosaur skeletons and applying their knowledge of the relationship between skeletal features and survival to create "Paleontology Reports" about their perceptions of the lives of these creatures."

Set in Stone

This paleontology site has a number of instructional materials for the teacher. Suggestions for classroom activities can be found in the section titled "For the Classroom."

Note : The sites listed above all have lesson plans/activities for the Paleontology classroom teacher. For other resources in this subject area (e.g., instructional materials in General Science, Life Science, or Physical Science), or for curricular content and theme pages, click the "previous screen" button below. Or, click here if you wish to return directly to the CLN menu which will give you access to educational resources in all of our subjects.