Making Fossils

Today we tried a few experiments to make our own "fossils". The children made mould and cast fossils and also simulated mineralisation. Find lesson plans here, here and here.

Making trace fossils in Playdoh "mud"

Our dinosaur walked over this "mud". Later we poured on some more plaster "mud"

Dinosaurs walking on a "muddy" plaster lake bed

We made some dinosaur bones using sponges. The holes in the sponges represented the pores in bones. We soaked the bones in melted wax  to represent water rich in minerals. Later the wax hardened and preserved the bone's shape just as crystallised mineral would do.

Our hardened fossils