Watsessing 3rd-grade class becomes a paleontology lab

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — Rachel Mazzetta’s third-grade science class at Watsessing Elementary School became a paleontology lab on Monday, Oct. 21, as students learned about fossils. The hands-on lesson required pupils to visit four classroom discovery stations, with two being especially challenging.
One required students to uncover the laminated photograph of a fossil, buried inside a container of sand. Brushes were provided and, keeping in the spirit of the search, the pupils actually did take their time to gently move the sand away from the photograph. When one boy, maybe a little frustrated, said he was just going to pick up the fossil with his hand, a classmate told him not to do that because he had to use his brush, perhaps restoring his sense of purpose and patience.

Nearby in the classroom were descriptions of various types of fossils, and Mazzetta asked the students what sort of fossil they’d uncovered. According to the descriptions, there are several types of fossils: mold fossils, cast fossils and imprint fossils. Mold fossils are the shapes of living prehistoric forms found in rock; cast fossils are made when minerals are pushed into a mold of another fossil, and imprint fossils are the mold fossils of leaves or animal parts.

The second discovery station required students to write a short essay on the discovery of a dinosaur egg.
The third station provided slips of paper with the key steps in the creation of a fossil, but not in the correct chronological order. Students were required to put them into the correct order. The factors were: The flesh decays and all that is left are the hard bones and teeth; minerals seep into the bones causing a chemical change; an animal dies; the bones change into a heavy, rock-like copy of the original, and the animal is covered in layers of sediment.

Perhaps the most challenging station presented “fossils” to unearth, or as close to this as most third-graders get. At this station were chocolate chip cookies. The fossils? The chocolate chips, of course, with toothpicks provided for their careful excavation.

“Keep the cookies intact,” Mazzetta said. “And after we’re done with our fossil dig, I will let you eat your fossil.”
Great lesson. Now what child in this class won’t think of fossils, dinosaur eggs or paleontology with their next chocolate chip cookie?

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