Ancient Organisms

Unlock the world of Ancient Organisms with this Launch level Science Unlocked curriculum kit!

Ancient Organisms: Understanding the Past to Understand Now is an exciting experience for developing Paleontologists and historians. Additionally, students will understand the relationship between organisms based on anatomical similarities seen in fossils, embryos, and other modern organisms.

The kit includes a full-color student curriculum workbook and teacher guide, with detailed, step-by-step instructions for seven activities designed to engage your student in fossils. The student experience has inquiry-based activities and assessments designed to enhance your students understanding of fossils and how fossils are used to teach us about the past as well as connect the past to the present. This kit will take just minutes to set up, but provide over 15 hours of learning and fun! Both the teacher and student can jump right in and follow the student workbook and teacher guide.

In this kit, the student will engage in these fun activities:

1. Testing a set of samples to determine which are fossils and which are not.
2. Discover the characteristics of fossils by creating their own model of an ancient organism.
3. Create their own trace fossil to test for anatomical similarities.
4. Demonstrate their understanding of organism relatedness by creating an embryology model.
5. Learn about the two types of fossil dating and test their understanding with a hands-on example for each type.
6. Build two fossil records.
7. Sort organisms based on phenotypes and build a phylogenetic tree based on student-led research.

The included teacher guide, full-color student curriculum workbook, and various activities provide hours of learning and education. Use this Ancient Organisms lab kit to answer questions such as:

• What is a fossil?
• What can we learn from the different types of fossils?
• How do fossils help us understand relatedness among modern organisms?
• Is there more to relatedness than what we can see?

Interested in learning more? Check out our Student Workbook Sample and Teacher Guide Sample! 

More Information

• Safety Information (SDS)

This kit contains:

• Bag of samples
• Balloons
• Box of toothpicks
• Cardstock
• Feather
• Funnel
• Matches
• Packing peanuts
• Pie pan
• Pipet
• Plaster powder
• Sand
• Scale
• Shell
• Shrink film
• String
• Tongue depressors

You will also need:

• Baking sheet
• Clear tape
• Oven
• Permanent markers
• Scissors
• Tablespoon
• Teaspoon
• Water

• Learning outcome: Design and carry out investigations to discover the intricacies of fossils and learn how they are used to understand ancient and modern organisms.
• NGSS science standards alignment
• HS-LS4-1 Communicate scientific information that common ancestry and biological evolution are supported by multiple lines of empirical evidence.
• MS-LS4-1 Analyze and interpret data for patterns in the fossil record that document the existence, diversity, extinction, and change of life forms throughout the history of life on Earth under the assumption that natural laws operate today as in the past.
• MS-LS4-2 Apply scientific ideas to construct an explanation for the anatomical similarities and differences among modern organisms and between modern and fossil organisms to infer evolutionary relationships.
• MS-LS4-3 Analyze displays of pictorial data to compare patterns of similarities in the embryological development across multiple species to identify relationships not evident in the fully formed anatomy.