This is a partially developed activity description. It is included in the collection because it contains ideas useful for teaching even though it is incomplete.

Fossil evidence for evolutionary and environmental change

Authors: David Gillikin, Bret Bennington, Katrin Monecke, Blaine Schubert, and Michael Savarese

Activity Description

The instructor chooses one or more topics/concepts e.g. convergent evolution environmental change geographic change functional morphology evolutionary lineage/relatedness etc. and students search for fossil/geologic evidence in the objects on display in the museum to illustrate/provide evidence for the key topic/concept. Each student creates a concept sketch or series of concept sketches with photos of the museum exhibits as the central graphics. The concept sketches must demonstrate the students understanding not only of the objects in the museum exhibits but also how those objects illustrate or provide evidence for the topic or concept.

Learning Goals

  • Students will make observations of fossils in the museum to connect fossil evidence with key concepts learned in class/lab.

Assessment

Students will be assessed based on the quality of their concept sketches.