Science: What is a fossil and how are they formed?

Sunday 09 February 2025

Hello!

Our current science topic is fossils!

This week, we learnt about what a fossil is and how they are formed.

A fossil is the remains or trace of a living thing that lived a very long time ago. They can be fossils of animals, plants or even animal poo!

We decided that fossils are important because they tell us a lot about the past. For example, we know a lot about dinosaurs, what they looked like and even what they ate because of fossils that we have found.

We used this video to help us understand the process of fossilisation…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z2ym2p3

Mary Anning is our key scientist as she is known as one of the greatest fossil hunters to have ever lived. We’ve read about her as part of our reading fluency sessions. She found fossils in Lyme-Regis and she made amazing discoveries just from observing and studying them!

If you have a fossil at home that you are happy to bring into school, please do! We would love to have a look at different fossils in real life.

Help at home: When you are travelling somewhere, quiz each other on whether an object is living or not living and whether it could be made into a fossil! Is this pen living? No! Is this rock living? No! Is this apple living?

Moortown Primary School, Leeds
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