As a part of our Evolution and Inheritance project in Science, this week we have been looking at fossils and what they tell us about the past.

Using the loan box from Charmouth Heritage Centre, we were able to look at real fossils which had been discovered along the Jurassic Coast. Some of the children were shocked to hear that some of the artefacts dated back to 190 million years ago! We learnt how fossils are formed and why they are often found along the coast.  We then moved onto classifying fossils and were amazed that even bacteria can be fossilised!

We then started to think about evolution and looked at the works of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. We looked at Darwin’s observations of the finches on the Galapagos island and learnt about how the different species on the islands had different sized beaks all due to the type of food they would eat. We explored how the finches must have been the same at some point, but over time they would have adapted to their environment and that this is called the theory of evolution.

We are really excited for our trip to Charmouth next week where hopefully we will discover lots of fossils on the beach!