Deducations from Fossil Preservation

Steven M. Stanley
,
University of Hawaii
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Summary

This exercise helps students learn how to deduce things from modes of preservation of fossils. It teaches them how to be effective sleuths.

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Context

Audience

This exercise can be used in either undergraduate or graduate courses.

Skills and concepts that students must have mastered

All they need is a logical mind. Background material is provided -- partly, as needed, by the instructor on the scene.

How the activity is situated in the course

Stand-alone exercise

Goals

Content/concepts goals for this activity

How fossils form and what their preservational features reveal about preservational and diagenetic processes as well as modes of life.

Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity

This is all about deductive reasoning in the formation of hypotheses.

Other skills goals for this activity

The exercise can be conducted in groups. This may be especially desirable if there is a wide range of abilities within the class.

Description of the activity/assignment

Students will view fossils, sometimes with supporting illustrations, and answer questions about them via deductive reasoning. The exercise is highly interactive, with the instructor providing hints and helpful questions. The questions concern ways in which fossil preservation reveals information about things like what kind of organism the fossil represents, how that organism lived, and how the fossil came into being.

Determining whether students have met the goals

There will be similar, hands-on tasks in tests.

More information about assessment tools and techniques.

Teaching materials and tips

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