The Great Fossil Find and NSTA Book Fair

I had the opportunity recently to teach a science lesson in a 5th class a friend of mine teaches. I had been dying to do the Great Fossil Find activity with a group, and this seemed like a great opportunity to do so.

The kids LOVED it. Every single one was engaged, asking questions, discussing possibilities. It was great getting them to think and hypothesize; a key part of the activity is that you never have all of the pieces to the fossil, and an option in teaching the activity is to never tell the class what type of animal the pieces come together to be. However, because this was a one-off lesson, I chose to tell the class at the very end; they were able to compare the final animal with what they had pictured, and just about every group had certain characteristics spot on. (I think that every single one of them may have killed me if I hadn't told them the dinosaur in the end!)

It was fascinating seeing the process skills being applied in these kids; the end goal of the activity wasn't the fossils themselves but the critical thinking required to hypothesize and discuss. It's a wonderful activity that summarizes the essence of scientific inquiry, and I plan to use it in my own classroom every year.

"COME BUY SOME BOOKS!" - totally-not-creepy Scholastic stick puppet

On a totally seperate subject, the NSTA is hosting their annual scholastic book sale in the Science Building; come buy some books...for SCIENCE!