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Most of your children will have seen fossils in museums, classrooms,
or on television, yet many will not have developed a formal scientific
conception of what a fossil is or how it forms. For example, some children
do not think of trace fossils or impressions as fossils. They are more
likely to equate fossils with bones (vertebrates) than with impressions
or spores (plants) or with burrows, tracks, molds, and casts of invertebrates.
Many children understand that fossils reveal evidence of earlier life
(children commonly refer to this as "prehistoric life") and
of extinct animals and plants, yet do not understand that fossils can
be studied to understand how life has changed through time. Children also
have a variety of nonscientific ideas about how fossils form. They generally
know that decay is involved, yet some children equate fossilization with
"hardening" of the organism, yet many do not understand how
deposition (burial) and sediment size affect fossilization.
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