Part of the Hoosier History & Indiana State Parks Elementary School Curriculum Series
Key objectives
Students will understand that 400 million years ago when what is now Indiana was located near the equator, it was covered by a shallow sea. Students will also learn that the fossils found in many of our state parks are evidence left behind after the shallow sea disappeared.
Featured state parks
Key resources
Activity 1: Fossil Match
During this activity students will use specimen pictures of fossils and match them to an ID sheet, describe why the pictures match, determine if the fossils are scavengers, herbivores or carnivores, then draw what they think the fossilized creature might have looked like alive. The drawing will be used in lesson two of this unit. Activity length: 60 minutes.
- Background
Indiana’s limestone bedrock formed 570 - 245 million years before the present. During this time, our continent was much further south, closer to the equator. Temperatures were warmer, and the area was covered by a shallow ocean.
The shallow ocean was filled with clams, snails and other animals. These animals had shells and structures that were rich in calcium. As they died, their shells formed layers on the ocean floor. As more and more layers piled up, their weight pressed down to form solid rock-- limestone.
Limestone is a sedimentary rock. All sedimentary rock is formed by layers deposited, one on top of the other, over a long period. Sedimentary rock can form from layers of dirt, sand, shells, plants or other material. Which layers of sedimentary rock would be the oldest rock layers -- the bottom layers or the top layers?
Fossils form when an animal’s shell or other hard structure is buried without being broken into smaller pieces. Over time, the shell is replaced with limestone forming a fossil replica or print of the shell.
- Vocabulary, materials required, focus questions
Vocabulary
- Bedrock: Solid rock underlying the soil.
- Continent: One of the earth’s seven major areas of land.
- Equator: The imaginary east-west line circling the Earth halfway between the North and South poles.
- Structure: A thing constructed.
- Calcium: A common element found in our bones and teeth.
- Deposited: To put or leave (someone or something) in a particular place.
- Fossil: A trace or print or the remains of a plant or animal of a past age preserved in earth or rock.
- Replica: A copy or reproduction.
- Scavenger: Eats whatever is available (plants, animals, other living things, dead things).
- Herbivore: Eats primarily plants.
- Carnivore: Eats primarily animals.
- Omnivore: Eats both animals and plants.
Materials required
- Computer with Internet connection
- Handout: Fossil Match
- Markers and crayons
Focus questions
- How is a fossil formed?
- How do ancient sea species compare to today’s ocean species?
- How has Indiana moved over time?
- Why don’t we find ancient seas fossils through out the state of Indiana?
- Step-by-step directions
- Travel back 400 million years to a time when Falls of the Ohio State Park was covered by an ancient sea. The water would have come up to students’ knees in most places. In others, it would be over their head. The seas were filled with life. We know this because of the fossils the students see before them. Use the focus questions and resources to facilitate a discussion of the ancient seas in relation to Indiana.
- Spend a few minutes looking at the Falls of the Ohio website and locating Falls of the Ohio on a map of Indiana and identifying its latitude and longitude in comparison to where your school/town are located.
- Distribute “Fossil Match” Worksheets.
- Explain that they are to match the fossil pictures with the correct hint on the page.
- After they have identified the fossils, use the answer key to check their work and learn about where the fossil lived and what it ate.
- Have the students choose a favorite ancient sea creature fossil and draw what it might have looked like when it was alive. Make sure they add color.
- Ask these questions about the selected sea creature:
- What did it eat?
- How did it move? (Or was it stationary?)
- How did it protect itself from being eaten?
- What animal lives today that resembles this creature, if any? What is one thing that this creature has or does that no other creature does?
- As a wrap-up to this activity, talk about the challenges of protecting these internationally known fossil beds. What are the challenges? (Ignoring posted rules about not collecting fossils,littering). What is being done already? (Fossil collecting piles are available near the Interpretive Center to provide the collecting experience without damaging the fossil beds; volunteers rove fossil beds during the summer to answer questions/talk with visitors) What are some other ways they might be protected?
Activity 2: A Walk Through Time
This activity takes students on a geological tour back through time from the top of the Clifty Canyon to the bottom at Clifty Falls State Park. Activity length: 60 minutes.
- Background
Clifty Falls was created during the Ice Age when the southward flowing waters of Clifty Creek met the newly formed Ohio River in a spectacular plunge, a waterfall that may once have been 200 feet high. The falls has since cut its way into bedrock to a point more than two miles north of its original position. The park’s 425-million-year-old shale and limestone rocks contain numerous marine fossils and are among the oldest bedrock exposures in Indiana. These layers of shale, limestone and fossils were formed when shallow seas formed, deepened and then receded, leaving behind marine animals buried in layers of mud of varying types that hardened into rock. Clifty Creek’s stony bed is littered with fossil remnants including ancient corals, ancestral squids, brachiopods and more. Fossil collecting within Clifty Falls State Park is prohibited but near-by collecting locations are readily accessible.
- Vocabulary, materials required, focus questions
Vocabulary
- Ice age: A time in the distant past when a large part of the world was covered with ice.
- Bedrock: Solid rock underlying the soil.
- Shale: A soft kind of rock that splits easily into flat pieces and is formed by the consolidation of clay, mud, or silt.
- Limestone: A rock that is formed chiefly from animal remains (as shells or coral) and consists mainly of calcium carbonate.
- Fossil: A trace or print or the remains of a plant or animal of a past age preserved in earth or rock.
Materials Required
Focus Questions
- How can geologists learn how the Earth’s layers were formed?
- Have you visited Clifty Falls State Park before? If so, what do you remember?
- Step-by-step directions
- Spend a few minutes locating Clifty Falls State Park on a map of Indiana and identifying its latitude and longitude in comparison to where your school/town are located.
- Use this hand-out describing the formation of Big Clifty Falls at Clifty Falls State Park. Look at the hand-out and discuss the following questions:
- Where do geologists believe the waterfall was located after the last glacier over a million years ago?
- Find the location of Big Clifty Falls on the Clifty Falls property map, and locate the Ohio River. How far has the waterfall moved upstream and how did it happen?
- Looking at the rock layer diagram, what has the erosion of Clifty Falls down through the different rock layers allowed us to see and understand about what the land looked like through time?
- Watch the virtual tour as the interpretive naturalist at Clifty Falls talks about the formation of layers of rock and fossils in Clifty Canyon.
- Clifty Canyon is a state dedicated nature preserve. Create a poster that illustrates the formation of geological layers through time at Clifty Canyon and present it to another classroom. Include a message about the value of this natural resource and how it is protected.
Extension Ideas
- Take a field trip to Clifty Falls State Park to examine fossils and geologic layers that describe our landscape millions of years ago.
- Take a field trip to Falls of the Ohio State Park to explore the interpretive center and visit the Devonian fossil beds that have international significance.
Thanks to Dr. Ronald Morris and the history education students at Ball State University for their assistance and creativity in developing the activities for this unit.
