Worksheets and No Prep Teaching Resources Reading Comprehension Worksheets Fossils Rocks and Minerals

Fossils Fossils

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Fossils
Print Fossils Reading Comprehension


Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 7 to 8
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	7.22

Vocabulary

challenging words:

blasters, matrix, showing, paleontologists, trilobite, seashell, trilobites, kingdom, backed, classification, actual, plaster, theory, drills, genus, evidence

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Fossils By Sharon Fabian

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¹     Fossil hunters put on some old work clothes and gather up a few old-fashioned tools such as pry bars, chisels, hammers, and brushes. Then they head out to an abandoned stone quarry. Why? They're on the trail of trilobites.
 
²     Trilobites are ancient arthropods. Just like today's arthropods (ants and lobsters, for example), they had jointed legs and bodies made of several parts called segments. There were many types of trilobites, but the average trilobite was only about one inch long. Trilobites lived in the seas that covered much of the Earth about 300 million years ago, and the fossil hunters are hoping to find evidence, preserved in the rock, to show that they existed.
 
³     Another day, the fossil hunters, known as paleontologists, might go out to another area that used to be a lake or swamp. Maybe they will be looking for dinosaur bones on this day. Fossils are often found along the edge of what was once water. Maybe the thirsty dinosaurs liked to stop there for an afternoon drink. Another day the paleontologists might search for teeth from a shark that swam the ancient seas.

Paragraphs 4 to 9:
For the complete story with questions: click here for printable

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Fossils

Fossils

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Rocks and Minerals

Rocks and Minerals

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Science

Science

Careers in Science         Caring for Earth         Clouds         Dinosaurs         Earth's Land         Earth         Earthquakes         Electricity         Energy         Erosion         Food Pyramid         Food Webs and Food Chain         Forces and Motion         Fossils         Health and Nutrition         How Things Work         Landforms         Life Science         Light         Magnets         Matter

Moon         Natural Disasters         Photosynthesis         Plant and Animal Cells         Plants         Rocks and Minerals         Science Process Skills         Scientific Notation         Seasons         Simple Machines         Soil         Solar System         Sound         Space and Stars         Sun         Tsunami         Volcanoes         Water Cycle         Water         Weather

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