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Question Sheet: Fossil Forests

SCIENCE

Before reading:

  1. Where is the Arctic?

  2. What is a fossil?

During reading:

  1. What was the Arctic like 45 million years ago?

  2. Where is Axel Heiberg Island? Why is it interesting to Hope Jahren and her team?

  3. Why is fossilized wood important for understanding the history of a region?

  4. Describe the difference between a deciduous tree and most conifers.

  5. How did the darkness of the Arctic affect metasequoia trees?

  6. How might studying the Arctic's past help us prepare for global warming?

After reading:

  1. In what ways might global warming affect daily life in the area where you live? See 42explore.com/globewrm.htm (eduScapes).

  2. How is something being petrified different from being frozen in ice? Which process leads to better preservation? See geology.about.com/od/fossilstimeevolution/a/aa_oldDNA.htm (About).

  3. Could polar bears, white hares, or mosquitoes have lived in the Arctic when it was warmer? Why or why not?

  4. Why is the Arctic especially important when scientists study global warming and its possible effects? See www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/qthinice.asp (Natural Resources Defense Council).

  5. What is petrified wood? Where in the United States can you find petrified wood? See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrified_wood (Wikipedia).

  6. When did the Eocene epoch start? How long did it last? What sorts of animals were present on Earth at that time? See www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tertiary/eoc.html (University of California, Berkeley).

SOCIAL STUDIES

Locate Axel Heiberg Island on a map. Who named this island? To which country does the island belong? What is the island's area? Do any people live on the island? If you were visiting the island, what sights would you see? See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_Heiberg_Island (Wikipedia).

LANGUAGE ARTS

  1. What if the weather in your area changed in an unexpected way? How would your daily activities change? See http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20061129/SciFiZone.asp .

  2. We care about weather because it says a great deal about a place, what could live there, and what it might be like to live there. Think about the plants you might expect to see on Earth, or how house construction varies from the tropics to the Arctic. So, weather and climate (the weather pattern over a year or longer) is something that should be considered by anyone building a world for a story. Try it for yourself. See http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20050202/SciFiZone.asp .

MATHEMATICS

A hunter walks 1 mile south. He then turns left and walks 1 mile east, then turns left again and walks 1 mile north. He ends up back where he started and spots a bear. What color is the bear? See http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060916/mathtrek.asp .

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