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Minnesota · Minnesota Science · Grade 4

4E.3.2.1.1: Identify evidence from patterns in rock formations and fossils in…

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

The Minnesota Academic Standards in Science (2019) outcome 4E.3.2.1.1 (Earth and Space Sciences) for Grade 4 says: “Identify evidence from patterns in rock formations and fossils in rock layers 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: Minnesota Academic Standards in Science (2019).

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 4E.3.2.1.1

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Compared with NGSS: 4-ESS1-1.

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