The Great Fossil Hunters has been developed and shared by the Eden Project. They have developed a set of two one hour lesson plans suitable for years 3, 4, 5 and 6, with a focus on science.
Three PDF documents are shared: The Great Fossil Hunters lesson plan, slide show and sample risk assessment.
These two lessons should enable students to:
- “consider how living things have changed over millions of years (evolution)
- be able to describe how fossils are formed
- explain what we can learn from fossils
- use practical skills and creativity to make a model that describes a scientific idea “
The lessons were designed to help teachers cover two aspects of KS2 Science: Year 3 learning about rocks and year 6 learning that things change over time.
There is a full list of the resources required for the lesson and a full break down of the lesson plan.
In the first lesson, children learn what fossils are and how they were made; they make an example fossil to learn the process, reflect on what they have learned and research what a paleontologist does.
In the second lesson, children learn how to excavate and clean a fossil.
There are links to suitable video clips, health and safety information, fossil hunting guides etc. It is a really useful pack for anyone studying rocks and fossils.
