Fossils & Environment
What is a fossil?
Evidence of an organism that lived long ago.
How do scientists know that dinosaurs lived long ago?
Fossils provide evidence that dinosaurs lived in the past.
What is a trace fossil?
Evidence of an animal's activity, such as a footprint.
What do scientists use to learn about things they cannot observe directly?
Evidence
What does extinct mean?
A type of organism that no longer exists.
What can scientists learn from fossils?
They can learn about organisms and environments from the past.
What can dinosaur bones tell scientists?
They can provide information about what dinosaurs may have looked like.
What can dinosaur footprints tell scientists?
They can provide evidence about how a dinosaur moved or behaved.
What is an inference?
A conclusion or idea based on evidence.
Did dinosaurs live before or after humans?
Before humans.
Scientists find whale fossils in a desert. What might this tell them about the area long ago?
The area may have once been covered by water.
Why can't scientists simply look at a living dinosaur to learn what it looked like?
Dinosaurs are extinct.
When you walk, are your steps usually closer together or farther apart than when you run?
Scientists find a fossil. What should they do with the fossil to learn from it?
Observe, measure, and analyze it.
How can scientists learn about animals that lived millions of years ago?
By studying fossils and other evidence.
Why can fossils help scientists learn about environments from long ago?
Fossils provide evidence about the organisms that lived in those environments.
Scientists find dinosaur bones with certain shapes and sizes. How could they use this evidence?
They can use it to make inferences about the dinosaur's size, shape, or appearance.
What might it mean if a dinosaur's footprints are very far apart?
The dinosaur may have been running or moving quickly.
Scientists find two sets of dinosaur footprints. One set has footprints much farther apart. What inference could they make?
That dinosaur may have been moving faster.
How can comparing an ancient organism's fossil to animals alive today help scientists?
It can help them identify similarities and differences and learn more about the ancient organism.
A scientist finds fossils of sea animals in an area that is now dry land. What can the scientist infer?
The environment in that area was different long ago and may have been underwater.
Why is it important for scientists to use evidence when reconstructing what a dinosaur looked like?
Scientists cannot observe dinosaurs alive, so they must use fossil evidence to make informed conclusions.
Scientists find a dinosaur's footprints changing from close together to far apart. What could they infer?
The dinosaur may have changed from walking to running.
Why can't scientists be completely certain about everything they learn from fossils?
Fossils provide evidence, but scientists are making inferences about the past from that evidence.
Scientists discover fossils of an animal that looks similar to an animal alive today. What can they learn by comparing the two?
They can use similarities and differences as evidence to learn about how organisms have changed over time.