Why Palm Fossils Are Found in Wyoming, Read and Answer

Stack a few slices of bread or colored clay to model layers, then ask which layer went down first. If you can, visit a road cut, a museum or a rock shop to look for real layers and fossils. Check each page with the answer key.

Read why palm leaf and fish fossils at Fossil Butte in Wyoming show a warm lake there long ago. Climate is the usual weather in a place over many years. The directions on the page read: Read the passage. Then, turn the page and answer the questions. On page 2: Circle the letter of the best answer for questions 1 to 3, and write the answers to questions 4 to 6 on the lines. The answer key covers the questions on page 2.

Yes, both. We made it for 4th Grade Earth science, and the page works the same whether it lands on a kitchen table or a center rotation. At home, most families go through it together and talk the answers out loud, and that talking is where most of the learning happens with rock layers and fossils. In class it runs well as independent work while you pull a small group. Print one copy or thirty, whichever the day needs.

The rock formed on a sea floor, where a dead fish was buried in sediment that slowly hardened into rock. Over millions of years, moving pieces of Earth's crust pushed against each other and lifted that rock into mountains. That is why shells are found high in the Himalayas.

Sediment settles in flat layers, and each new layer lands on top of the older ones. The weight presses the lower layers into rock, so as you dig down, each layer is older than the one above it.

Its rock and fossils show where it formed. Limestone with shells often formed in a shallow sea, sandstone from desert or beach sand and shale from mud in calm water. Clam fossils under an oak leaf print show a sea that later became a forest (4-ESS1-1).

Yes. All 9 rock layers and fossils sheets have an answer key, with sample answers for the questions children answer in their own words.