UKS2 Topic: Dinosaurs and Fossils Block D: Fossil humans

Session 3 Human fossils
National Curriculum / Science: Recognise that living things have changed over time and that fossils provide information about living things that inhabited the Earth millions of years ago; Identify how animals and plants are adapted to suit their environment in different ways and that adaptation may lead to evolution.
Teaching Objectives / To create a timeline with details of early human fossils on it.
National Curriculum / History: Chn will understand that what we know is constructed from several different sources (fossils, footprints, genetic clock).
Teaching Objectives / To write some milestones of human development on the timeline.
Resources
Research questions; Timeline template; String across the classroom to pin events onto to make a timeline. / Weblinks
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/humans/riddle/index.html - Flash game about 'Lucy', an Australopithecus afarensis fossil from Kenya; http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/human-origins/early-human-family/australopithecus-afarensis/index.html - Information on Lucy from the Natural History Museum; http://humanorigins.si.edu/research/east-african-research/adventures-rift-valley-interactive - Flash game exploring the excavations of Homo erectus in the Rift Valley in Kenya; http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/human-origins/early-human-family/homo-erectus/index.html - Information about Homo erectus from the Natural History Museum; http://humanorigins.si.edu/research/asian-research/hobbits - Article and video about 'The Hobbit' skeleton found on Flores island, Indonesia; http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/community/news_in_brief/blog/2014/08/07/did-the-hobbit-human-have-downs-syndrome - Information on the Hobbit from the Natural History Museum; http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p005llpc - Video from a BBC series, The Incredible Human Journey about the earliest modern human in Europe from Romania; http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-evolution-timeline-interactive - Timeline of human achievements.
Whole class: Divide the class into teams (working in pairs on tablets or computers) to find out about specific human fossils: 'Lucy', remains found at Olorgesailie, the 'Hobbit' and the Oase skull. Give each team the relevant set of research questions (session resources). Get each team to assign research questions to each pair within their team and then start researching. Call a team conference after about 20 minutes of research to catch up on how research is going and then give them more time to finish off research if necessary.
When research has finished, ask chn to tell you what kinds of evidence they have found. The list could include: human bones, animal bones, fossil footprints, stone tools, changes to the earth.
Model making the timeline. Pin some string up across the classroom and mark some fixed dates on it with pegs or ribbons e.g. every 500,000 years. Using the timeline template (session resources) of the first use of fire, pin it on the timeline at the correct time. Ask each pair to create an event for the timeline using a blank template, either using their research into human fossils or by looking in detail at http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-evolution-timeline-interactive.
Easy/ Medium/ Hard
Have a mix of abilities within the research groups. The first two questions on each research sheet should be the easier ones to find answers to, so direct less able chn towards those questions.
For the second activity of creating events to pin up on the timeline, the research teams could come together again to discuss the details of each event, particularly what kind of evidence there is, before splitting again to do further research if necessary.
Plenary / How was Lucy adapted for her environment? (e.g. she could walk upright on grassland but could also climb well in the forest. She was smaller than the males who were adapted to protect the females). How were the early humans at Olorgesailie adapted for their environment? (they were clever – they worked together, made tools, were fierce hunters and used lots of resources around the environment). How was the Oase person adapted to their environment? (they weren't – they were still dark-skinned which is an adaptation to living in the tropics to avoid sunburn). How was the Hobbit adapted for her environment? (we don't know why she was so small – perhaps the males of her species were bigger, like in Lucy's species. Her wrist bones were not as mobile as ours but we don't know why.)
Outcomes / Children will
·  Address research questions
·  Put some human achievements, milestones and fossils on a timeline
·  Explain what different types of evidence there are for these
·  Start to think about how different humans species were adapted for their environments

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