Life Changed Over Time
Recognise that living things have changed over time and that fossils provide information about organisms that inhabited the Earth millions of years ago
What a learner can do afterwards
- State that living things have changed (evolved) over millions of years
- Describe how fossils form and what information they provide about the past
- Compare a fossil organism with a modern relative, noting similarities and differences
1 · Read
Long ago, Earth looked different. The plants and animals alive today are not exactly like the ones that lived millions of years ago. Little by little, living things have evolved, generation after generation.
Fossils of small dinosaurs from millions of years ago show feathers and hollow bones, just like the birds flying around today. Scientists compare these old fossils with living birds and see how one group slowly changed into the other. A fossil is the shape of a living thing from long ago, kept in rock. After an animal dies, its soft parts rot away. Its hard bones and teeth can get buried in mud. Over a very long time, minerals turn them to rock.
Fossils sit in rock layers, like pages stacked in a book. Where layers are still stacked in the order they formed, deeper layers are usually older, so scientists can often figure out which changes happened first.
Fossils record how living things have slowly changed over millions of years, connecting animals and plants today to their ancient relatives.
2 · Watch
Take it off screen
Where it sits
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
24 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.