Create a free account now and get 3 full lessons, completely free. Get my 3 free lessons

Worldwide: choose your country
Idaho · Idaho Science · Grade 4

4-ESS-1.1: Identify evidence from patterns in rock formations and fossils in…

Identify evidence from patterns in rock formations and fossils in rock layers for changes in a landscape over time to support an explanation for changes in a landscape over time.

The Idaho Content Standards for Science (2022) outcome 4-ESS-1.1 (Earth and Space Sciences) for Grade 4 says: “Identify evidence from patterns in rock formations and fossils in rock layers for changes in a landscape over time to support an explanation for changes in a landscape over time.” This Fieldbook unit teaches it hands-on, with everyday materials and a printable teacher guide and student sheet for every lesson. Official wording: Idaho Content Standards for Science (2022).

Restless Earth: Fossils, Soils, Volcanoes and Plates Grades 4–7 · partly supports this outcome

Press model fossils and read a cliff of layers, shake a jar of soil and watch it sort itself by grain size, plot real volcanoes and earthquakes on a world map to find the edges of Earth's plates, then move model plates and test a building on a shake table. Four hands-on lessons that build on Rocks and Erosion.

  • How do fossils form, and what can they tell us? 55–70 min

    Teams press shells and leaves into clay to make a mould and a salt-dough cast, build a cliff of coloured layers with a different model fossil in each, and swap cliffs to work out which layer is oldest. They then read a cliff of real fossils and explain that a place once under the sea is now dry land.

Printable practice for 4-ESS-1.1

These pages practise a closely related idea; the match to 4-ESS-1.1 is partial.

Need just this outcome? Build a custom pack from these pages, with its answer key, in about a minute. Custom packs come with All-access and school licences.

Compared with NGSS: 4-ESS1-1 (partial).

More Idaho Grade 4 science outcomes we teach

Every Idaho Grade 4 science standards outcome we teach

Every unit matched to Idaho's curriculum · All places and curricula

Three full lessons, free

Make a free account and download any three Fieldbook lessons as printable PDFs. No card needed.