Continental Drift and Fossils Lesson Plan and Video Tutorial

Fossils are a pretty fascinating geological phenomenon. Having some evidence of how things were from millions of years ago is pretty amazing. Fossils help us understand what plants and animals used to look like, as well as the different species that existed in the ancient past. Fossils also provided evidence of another phenomenon, which may be just as important as the fossil remains. When archaeologists found similar fossils thousands of miles apart on different continents, this helped scientists understand that certain landmasses were once connected at some point. Our understanding of continental drift would be minimal if it were not for fossils.

This game will help the students understand how fossil evidence can be found in different places on Earth. It will also show them how the Earth's layers are stratified, which helps them understand time. Finally, when all the evidence is put together, scientists and students can see how fossil evidence helped our understanding of continental drift.

Materials:

· An ample open space like a gym or a field

· Either:

o Several soccer balls with small goals or cones

§ or

o Hockey sticks with a softball and small goals or cones

· Lots and lots of jerseys or pennies with many different colors

o You should have around five times as many jerseys as you do students

§ If having this many jerseys is not feasible, using something like pieces of felt could be a reasonable substitute.

Minimum Number of Students: This game could theoretically be played with as few as eight students but works much better with 16+.