Mississippi Science FB.5.2
The Standard
- FB.5
- Students will demonstrate an understanding of Earth’s fossil record and its indication of the diversity of life over time.
Analyze and interpret data to support claims that different types of fossils provide evidence of the diversity of life that has existed on Earth and of the relationships between past and existing life on Earth.
2026 Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Science · Biological Evolution
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students compare bones, shells, and footprints preserved as fossils. They use fossil ages and visible traits to make claims about past life and its links to living organisms.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can use dated rock layers to show that different organisms lived at different times. They can point to shared structures in a fossil and a living organism as evidence of a relationship, without claiming one was the other's direct ancestor.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think every fossil is a bone, or that a footprint preserves the animal itself. They may assume two similar fossils prove that one species became another without checking their ages or specific traits.
How to Assess It
- Show a clam shell fossil, a fossil footprint, and photos of a living clam and beetle. Ask students what each fossil reveals and which living animal shares a visible trait with the shell fossil.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs dated rock-layer strips and fossil cards showing shells, bones, and footprints; have them place the cards and list each fossil's clue.
Show a fossil whale skeleton with hind legs beside a modern whale skeleton; ask students to name two shared bones and one change.
Play Fossil Claim Match: teams pair shell, track, and tooth fossil cards with claims each supports, then reject one unsupported claim.
Mark shell and leaf fossils on a roadcut sketch; students write a note to the road crew about what the layers reveal.
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Printable FB.5.2 Worksheet
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Related Standards
- ZOO.1.2
Describe how fossil records document the history of life on Earth.
- L.3.4.5
Construct scientific arguments using evidence from fossils of plants and animals that lived long ago to infer the characteristics of early environments (e.g., m...
- E.8.7.3
Construct and analyze scientific arguments to support claims that most fossil evidence is an indication of the diversity of life that was present on Earth and t...
- ESS.3.8
Analyze and interpret the record of shared ancestry, evolution, and extinction as related to natural selection using fossils.
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