1. Earth Science
by Jennifer Reynolds
Genre Comprehension Skill Text Features Science Content
Nonfiction Retell • captions Fossils and
• Labels Dinosaurs
• Glossary
Scott Foresman Science 2.7
ISBN 0-328-13787-1
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3. How can we learn A fossil is a print of a plant or animal from
about the past? long ago.
Fossils can be footprints.
Rocks can tell stories about the past. Fossils can be parts of plants or animals.
Scientists called paleontologists look Some fossils are old bones.
at rocks.
They use them to tell what plants and
animals were like long ago.
These rocks may be fossils. Fossil of an animal
footprint in the mud
A paleontologist at work
Fossil of
a leaf in
the mud
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4. How Fossils Form Many years went by.
This is a lizard fossil. The sand and mud turned into rock.
The lizard lived long ago. The print of the lizard got left in the rock.
The lizard died. Now it is a fossil.
It got covered with sand and mud.
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5. What can we learn Sometimes plants and animals stop getting
what they need.
from fossils?
Plants and animals die when this happens.
Fossils tell about plants and animals Plants and animals may become extinct
of the past. when habitats change.
Some plants and animals do not live on
Earth anymore.
They are extinct.
Fossils can tell about extinct plants
and animals.
This Archaeopteryx
is now extinct.
Archaeopteryx
fossil
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6. What were dinosaurs like? Some dinosaurs were big.
Some dinosaurs were small.
Dinosaurs were animals that lived Some dinosaurs ate plants.
a long time ago. Some dinosaurs ate other animals.
Now dinosaurs are extinct.
They do not live on Earth anymore.
This dinosaur was the
size of a chicken.
Barosaurus
was very tall.
This dinosaur
ate other
dinosaurs.
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7. Learning about Dinosaurs Fossils show that a Stegosaurus had
Some dinosaur bones have turned a large body.
into fossils. It had a small head and a small mouth.
Paleontologists look at these fossils. Paleontologists think this dinosaur ate plants.
These fossils give clues about what dinosaurs
looked like.
Stegosaurus
Stegosaurus skeleton
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8. What are some new Then palentologists found another
Oviraptor fossil.
discoveries?
This Oviraptor fossil was sitting on the eggs.
Paleontologists found these fossils of eggs. Now paleontologists think the eggs were the
They also found a fossil of an Oviraptor near Oviraptor’s own eggs.
the eggs. They think the Oviraptor was keeping its
They thought the Oviraptor took the eggs to eggs safe.
eat them.
Egg fossils
Eggs
Oviraptor
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9. Paleontologists learn different things from Fossils can give us some clues about these
different fossils. plants and animals.
Paleontologists ask questions about life on What questions do you have about life on
Earth long ago. Earth long ago?
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