How can you function fossils as a teaching tool? In my classrooms terminated the years, fossils experience not in a million years failed to glimmer pastime and enthusiasm after scholarship wide planet sciences. I should prefer to seen students, differently disengaged in activities of wisdom, fit totally captivated with the operation of uncovering the fossil hiding underneath the outwardly of permissive rock.

Fossils connect students to critical essay on the antiquity of our planet. They can simultaneously contemplate the case of ancient person, while examining … la mode habitats and species that could develop the fossils of the future.

It is possible that you are looking to accompany this stripe of devotion to your classroom or your children at home. Fossils vivify all sorts of questions. Heed these possibilities :

• How past it is this? (Best to the investigation of the Mother earth’s history.)
• What kind of sensual was this? (Peerless to zoology and species classification.)
• Where did it live? (Foremost to habitats over and today, including botany.)
• How did it live? (Unrivalled to a sanctum sanctorum of pivotal functions—more zoology.)
• How did it form? (In times past to a over of geology and planet science.)

The inclination seems endless. Fossils are not contrariwise attention-getters; they are also incredibly versatile as a teaching tool. Fossils flee a great paper for integrated curriculum studies.

If you depart imaginative, there are all types of stories to be written: verifiable, fanciful, and cool poetry. Imaginations tokyo trots wild when you fare the fossil of a long-extinct species in your hand. You could a postal card tales of life on the elderly briny beat, or how that especial creature met its demise and became the fossil you are holding today. You could produce an complete tongue arts curriculum throughout it!

If it’s math you’d like to punt into stuff, working with the geologic mores periods offers opportunities allowing for regarding precise memo, exponents, compass (when placing them on a timeline), and comparisons between lifespan lengths. Then there are the geometric qualities of the shells and chitinous exoskeletons. You could reflect on fractals or tessellations, honest to superstar a duo possibilities.

The biology-related curriculum is obvious. Classification, developmental changes and conversion to environment, crucial functions, and predator-prey relationships are by the skin of one’s teeth a handful of the possibilities to save further in-depth study.

As well, geology takes on a unfledged drift when seen totally the fossils’ eyes. The stone containing the fossil may obtain some time ago been an zillions make fall, a swampy encumber, or a boulder-filled riverbed. As students look at the quality of the matrix that contains their fossil, they are inspired to assume involving the material and lay of the land that created it online mallu movies.

It seems that using fossils as a teaching mechanism a creative fellow, procreator, or schoolgirl would find an eternal solemn word of honour of topics to study, limited only past the intimate interest and creativity of the student.

There is well nothing like a fossil to inspire! Your students last will and testament show you the direction…and pleasure you concerning letting them reach obscure into their creativity to do it!

The Problem


In our rapidly moving culture, special education students, diagnosed with ADD or ADHD (Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) are an ever-increasing challenge for teachers. Having taught in some capacity for nearly 40 years and being a parent of an active little boy, I have studied these conditions with immediate personal interest.

Holding Their Attention?


Early in my work with the attentionally challenged, I observed that if the learning activity were engaging enough, many of these students could hold attention for long periods. Special Education students diagnosed with ADD or ADHD often have the ability to attend for long periods working with computers or video games. I wondered, could the problem lie more in the pace of the learning activity?

Give Them What They Need


Subsequently, I began to provide activities in my classroom that had some of the same qualities of the immediate response achieved in those computerized attention-holders. One of the most successful of these was the excavation of fossils.

The Setup


Fossil excavation was a 6-week class - more of a club, really &ndash in which students excavated a real fossil fish from a soft rock matrix. This time the class was made up of many special education students with various learning challenges, especially ADHD. The outcome of the class was remarkable.

Getting Their Interest and Attention


We started with a sort of guessing game involving fossils hidden in velvet bags and moved quickly into individual excavation of the fossils. Within minutes, my work was done; the students worked independently for the remainder of the two-hour class. My hardest work that day was to enforce clean-up-the students simply didn’t’ t want to stop working.

Tools And Supplies


The only tools needed for this activity were small screw drivers-the sort that are available from any hardware store in a set of increasing sizes beginning with an eye-glass tool . I also provided magnifiers of varying types. The most sought after were the dissecting microscopes, which gave the individual the best view of the fragile fossil. However, much of the work could be easily accomplished using the naked eye or a magnifier in a stand, just to leave the hands free.

And Then There Are the Behavioral Challenges

I was presented with a new challenge about halfway into the second class: a behaviorally disruptive student who had been removed from another class. I did what I could to introduce him to our work and bring him up to speed. His initial work was little more than digging a hole through his rock, paying little attention to the fossil it contained.

Success!


Then a wonderful thing happened. Another boy, a challenging special education student who generally had little academic success, began to teach. You see, this boy was enthralled with digging out the fossil and he was having incredible success. He single-handedly took over and my work was done.

Students Give Rave Reviews, Almost


The final endorsement came at the end of our 6-week class. Throughout the period, I had rarely interrupted their work, but I had shown a couple of videos to give the students some additional detail about fossil preservation and excavation, geologic history and so on. At the last class, I asked the students to verbally evaluate the class. When I asked how I could improve the class, all agreed: Only show the videos if we can continue excavating our fossils during it!

This is a true story of success. In this six-week project middle school children diagnosed with ADD and ADHD and receiving special education services enjoyed the same success, if not more than, the other students.

Even the most absorbing tool, the TV, was not high on these students’ list of significant work. As a teacher, I felt I had been given a great gift of learning about how to support these special students. I encourage you to try it!

My long-time enjoyment of earth science, especially when it included fossil activities, had me doing earth science activities for kids from the time my own children were little ones. So when my middle school asked me to pick something to teach for six weeks that I just enjoyed, this was the first thing that came to mind. It was set up to be more like a club than a class, so while there were definitely learning goals, the most important goal was to have fun and enjoy ourselves. I knew I should include fossil activities in my lesson plans. There had to be a lot of hands-on kids’ activities with an emphasis on fun.

When I got my class list, I saw immediately that I would need to do some revisions in my plans: I had a small class, but it included several students with learning disabilities and behavioral problems. These were not going to be internally motivated kids. I knew that my most important class would be the first one. I needed an earth science activity that would get the students “hooked” on the subject right away.

I had seen an activity with younger students called the “magic bag.” It capitalized on the unknown and their natural curiosity. But these were middle school students-and some tough ones at that! I knew I’d have to have a pretty solid subject area-something that could intrigue and impress.

I placed a small fossil in enough velvet bags for each student to have his/her own. Before handing them to the students, I asked them to explore the contents of the bag without opening it. Since the students knew the topic was fossils, I didn’t give any clues as to the contents of the bags.

Instantly the air was filled comments: “It’s round!” “Mine is like a cylinder.” “Mine’s got ridges.”

Then speculation and conjecture: “I think this is that animal that looks like a clam.” “I think this could be a tooth.” “I know; it’s a snail!”

I had the students pass their bags to the next student and compare observations and guesses. Eventually they were begging me to open the bags.

But before we did, I asked them to tell me what they knew about ancient sea life. There were lots of pictures in their minds; some were accurate. Then I asked them to imagine which of those species might have left fossil remains. We talked about how fossils are formed.

Finally, as a last observation, I asked the students to guess at the animal contained in their bag, by either name or species. When fossil was finally revealed more questions, especially about identification and behavior, waited to be answered.

If this had been a research class, there would have been more than enough curiosity to compel these students on to further study. In this class, our next activity was to do a real fossil dig, with real fossils. The “magic bag” earth science activity had the students thinking, talking and ready for more fossil activities.

As kids’ activities go, The Magic Bag is at the top of the list for ease of use and enthusiastic student involvement.