Review of "Dig into Fossils" journal article

I chose to read this article in hopes that it would give me ideas for my current fossil unit that I am teaching in my elementary methods program. This article gave me numerous ideas for act... See More

I chose to read this article in hopes that it would give me ideas for my current fossil unit that I am teaching in my elementary methods program. This article gave me numerous ideas for activities that I could do within my classroom. The first activity which I found intriguing was the activity for the first day of teaching. This activity is similar to what I taught within my own lesson. It focuses on having the students observe real life fossils, and detail how they observed them. As in with what senses they observed them with. I liked how the person giveing this lesson checked for initial knowledge as well by asking the students who knew what a fossil was or a paleontologist. It was described that half of the students knew what a fossil was and half knew what a paleontologist was. This is a manageable level of learning to start at for the students in this classroom. I also liked how within the second lesson the person teaching gave the students opportunity to rotate between several stations and view different types of fossils. Part of the lesson also includes the teacher giving the students fossils and asking the to observe and draw what they see. I thought that these lessons were very well put together, and the way one draws from the one before it causes them to smoothly from one lesson to the next.

Creative Activities!

I really enjoyed reading this journal article because it explains how students can be actively engaged in scientific lessons at an early age. Students are very capable of learning about chal... See More

I really enjoyed reading this journal article because it explains how students can be actively engaged in scientific lessons at an early age. Students are very capable of learning about challenging material, they just need to be taught to their potential. These activities are fun and engaging. I really like how Activity 1 has students make observations first and then learn about the fossils afterwards. This, in my opinion, increases their level of interest and motivation to learn more. I also think that making the connection to real life paleontology and how paleontologists have different ideas and opinions on fossils is important, because there is so much that is unknown, but it is important for students to learn to make inferences and observations from limited material. All the lessons are fun and engaging and motivate me to want to learn more about fossils!