Paleontology (for Parents/Teachers)

The first important step will be to make lots of play dough. The recipe for play dough is below:

•     1 cup boiling water
•     1 tablespoon vegetable oil
•     1/2 cup salt
•     Food coloring
•     1 cup flour

*Note: Any parent that makes play dough is probably asking why no cream of tartar, the reason this is left out is because we want each layer to dry fairly quickly and have imprints from our fossils left in it, the longer it remains pliable the harder it will be to get this desired effect.

Directions

1. Combine water, oil, salt, and food coloring.
2. Add flour
3. Knead until smooth.
4. Store this dough in an airtight container or a Ziploc freezer bag until ready to roll out and press.

Now the amount of dough that you make will vary depending on the number of students/children you have doing the lab. A single recipe can easily be used for one child, however for a class of 10-15 I recommend making 5 batches colored white (I like to use this for bones as well as layers, just don’t put white bones in a white layer makes it a bit hard for the kids to find), black (I like to use this as ash from volcanoes and as seeds), brown (I like to use this as mud or as leaves), tan (I like to use this as a sandy layer), and grey (I like to use this as clay, one of the best sources for body fossils).

The first step will be to design your undisturbed sedimentation sample. This will be done by making layers in specific thicknesses and putting them one on top of the other (no pressing of samples or placement of fake bones is required for this section, but to assure you have the same thickness between your sample and the kids samples I recommend coming up with your plan and rolling everything out at once and cutting your sample from the full rolled out sheet). 

When setting up your sedimentation layers think about a few handy tricks:

• Black being ash from volcanoes could trigger extinction events so you could put small bones made out of play dough or leaves under a black layer.
• Clay is awesome for finding intact specimens so between two layers of clay you could put fine details like feathers and a full skeleton
• Mud can also preserve some specimens so it does not hurt to sprinkle something under that layer
• Since sand shifts about so much and is prone to wind erosion I would recommend not putting anything between sandy layers
• If you roll out layer by layer and add detail to each layer randomly then stack everything you can gently cut samples in whatever size you think is best for the kids in your group and make it a more fulfilling activity as they have to work with their colleagues to put together a whole picture or a whole skeleton.

I like to do things like snakes, fairly simple to put together with the skull and lots of ribs that can twist and turn so everyone gets a little bit to add to the puzzle.