Overview: Students play the roles of paleontologists on a dig. They “unearth” a few fossils at a time and attempt to reconstruct the animal the fossils represent. Author/Source: UC Museum of Paleontology Grade level: 6-8 Time: ~ 40 minutes Teaching tips: An excellent lesson for demonstrating and discussing the nature of science. Adaptable to multiple grade levels. Best to laminate sets of the “fossil bones” for repetitive use. Adapted from ENSI's Great Fossil Find. Concepts: Life forms of the past were in some ways very different from living forms of today, but in other ways very similar. A hallmark of science is exposing ideas to testing. Scientific knowledge is open to question and revision as we come up with new ideas and discover new evidence. Scientists use fossils to learn about past life. Teacher background: Evidence for Evolution Nature of Science

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