Lesson 5
What does a palaeontologist do?
Home > Private: *ARCHIVE Year 3 Science – Focus Group > Unit 1 – Biological Sciences > Lesson 5 – What does a palaeontologist do?
Lesson Plan
Preparation
- Source reference books, the internet or pictures on posters containing fossils and palaeontologists at work (optional) for students to view.
Curriculum links
- Australian Curriculum: ACSSU044, ACSIS053, ACSIS057, ACSIS060
- NSW Curriculum: ST2-4LW-S, ST2-1WS-S
- VIC Curriculum: VCSSU056, VCSSU057, VCSIS065, VCSIS069, VCSIS072
- WA Curriculum: ACSSU044, ACSIS053, ACSIS057, ACSIS060
Suggested teaching strategies
Introduction
- Display the digital lesson on your smartboard to introduce the palaeontologist profession.
- The student summary and worksheet should be used together.
Development
- Provide students with printable versions of the student summary and worksheet. Have students complete the worksheet.
Differentiation
- Investigation sheet could partially be completed as a class.
Conclusion
- Discuss the investigation sheet as a class and the answers everybody came up with.
Assessment
Worksheet answers
1. Possible answers: discovers fossils; studies fossils; digs out, cleans, repairs and puts fossils back together.
2. Answers could indicate ‘yes’ because the word is from a Latin one meaning ‘dug up’, which is what happens to fossils.
3. (a) bones, teeth, claws (b) animal droppings/nests/eggs/footprints
4. A plant doesn’t have hard parts like bones.
5. It must be gently covered by fine sand or mud before it decays and disappears.
6. Possible answers: (a) how old a fossil is (b) what kind of plant it was, like a fern or a palm (c) if an animal walked on two or four legs/size of animal (d) what the animal ate Investigation sheet answers Answers should indicate: 1. First fossil is a plant (as it is a frond). Second is an animal as it looks like a bone. 2. Body of an insect with a head and thin legs, and wings. Looks like a moth or butterfly. 3. Walked on two legs, had a tail, large head, large jaw, sharp teeth, claws on hands, probably a fierce creature that ate other animals. (Some students may work out it is a T-rex dinosaur skeleton.) 4. Lived in a marine environment as they are fossils of a fish, shells and a starfish. 5. The tracks show a smaller animal’s footprints being followed by a larger animal’s footprints. The larger animal caught the smaller one. They had a struggle and the smaller one was killed and eaten. The larger one walked away, leaving a few bones.
Investigation sheet answers
Answers should indicate:
1. First fossil is a plant (as it is a frond). Second is an animal as it looks like a bone.
2. Body of an insect with a head and thin legs, and wings. Looks like a moth or butterfly.
3. Walked on two legs, had a tail, large head, large jaw, sharp teeth, claws on hands, probably a fierce creature that ate other animals. (Some students may work out it is a T-rex dinosaur skeleton.)
4. Lived in a marine environment as they are fossils of a fish, shells and a starfish.
5. The tracks show a smaller animal’s footprints being followed by a larger animal’s footprints. The larger animal caught the smaller one. They had a struggle and the smaller one was killed and eaten. The larger one walked away, leaving a few bones.
Student Pages























Desk and chair
You would be likely to say your teacher and you are living and your desk and chair are non-living.

But how do you know this?


You would probably say you are living because you can move, grow and breathe.
Your desk can’t do
these things so it
is non-living.
Usually it's easy to tell
if something is living
or non-living.

But sometimes non-living things can do some of the things that living can do.
For example, clouds can move across the sky.
A fire can grow and get larger.

However, for something to be called living, it must have all the features of living things.
Living things, like humans, other animals and plants,
can do the following...
Fire moves, grows and seems to ‘eat’ things when it burns them.
But fire does not reproduce.
It is non-living.



Fire
Clouds move and change colour and shape.
They drop rain and can get bigger.
Clouds are non-living.
But they do not breathe, eat or have offspring.



Clouds
Water moves and changes state.
While water might carry away wastes, it does not make waste or reproduce.
Water is non-living.



Water

What about things like a bouquet of flowers and fruit you buy in a supermarket?
The cut flowers are
‘once living’, once part
of living plants.
Fruit is also once living.

Fossils are the remains of once living animals.
Dead animals or plants are also once living things.



Fossil
Paper and wood were once part of living trees.
There are many products made from living things.



Wood
Milk and cheese comes from animals such as dairy cows.
Flour is produced from wheat.



Milk and cheese
Downloads

Student Summary
Summary of student page information

Worksheet
Activities for students to complete

Investigation Worksheet
An experiment to consolidate learnings