Fossil Identification Guide (Shingle Beach)

This is a resource I created to be able to take the Year 3s beach combing/fossil hunting on a shingle beach on the SE coast. Whilst our beach does have some amazing fossils, the area was deemed too unsafe to go to, as access is tough and the cliffs are unstable, so instead I needed to research what the children were most likely to be able to find on a typical shingle beach (flint and chert) away from the cliffs.

I have chosen to introduce only what I suspect the children might have luck in finding, and also included some information about quartz in pebbles (geodes), as these can be found. We will tie it in with a visit to a local museum to see and handle some real fossils, and it should make for a nice summer outing.

This ppt is meant to be able to be used as an introduction, prior to a beach hunt (ideally with your own examples gathered in a pre-visit) Children will ideally receive instruction before or after on the formation of fossils. When I use it, I will take care to ensure the children know that we are relying on speculation, assumption and deduction, and all fossils would really require expert identification to be sure what they actually are.

The ppt is not long, but does represent hours of painstaking research! It’s so hard to wade through the higher brow guides to get to the basics. I’ve included a .pdf that can be used as a guide in situ.

I hope you will find it useful.

If you like this resource you may also like my resources on comparing and sorting different rock types. https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/compare-and-group-different-kinds-of-rocks-11910312
or Rock Identification (free) https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/what-s-my-rock-or-mineral-11912410