Year 6 Biology: Fossils in jelly activity
Learning objective
ALL: Fossils are useful tools for seeing what animals lived millions of years ago.
MOST: People find fossils and then figure out what kind of animal they are from their
shape and the place in the rocks they were found in.
SOME: Use some key words to describe how fossils are used to identify what life there
was millions of years ago and what people are called who do this for a living.
Differentiated outcomes:
ALL: Understand a fossil shows us what lived millions of years ago
MOST: Relate different sections of rock to different ages.
SOME: Explain that Palaeontologists study fossils and can date them based on the layer
of rock – usually how deep the fossil is.
Lesson in context/prior learning: The earth is millions of years old and different kinds of
life existed millions of years ago. Life has evolved from what lived in these times to the
living things we see today. Fossils show what animals used to exist a long time ago and
the animals we see today evolved from ancestors that were also around then.
Paleontologists study fossils and are able to date them based on the rock they were
found in. This gives us a picture of what kinds of life were around at similar times.
Activity 1 – This activity can either be prepared beforehand, or layers can be added each
day in the classroom to give children a clearer picture of the fossilisation process and
how the age of rocks work.
Prepare a jelly mixture and pour into a large, clear container to make the first layer. Place
small items in the jelly – if you want to take this a step further you can get small models
of the life you see in our timeline! (See evolution of life timeline activity). Once the first
layer has set, pour in a different colour jelly into the same container. This acts as the
next rock layer and is thus younger than the previous layer and will have younger living
things in it. Repeat the process until you have several different colours of layers and
‘fossils’ within!
Then get the children, your junior palaeontologists, to search for the fossils in the jelly
and place them in order from oldest to newest.
Students will answer differentiated questions:
How are fossils useful?
How can you tell how old the fossil is?
Who are people who look at fossils for a living?
Plenary: Bring children together and re-tell how rock layers can tell the age of a fossil
and tell them that they will learn about a junior palaeontologist called Mary Anning who
as a child searched for fossils near where she lived.