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What the Quarry Held is a free printable Grade 3 science worksheet on comparing fossil organisms with living ones to infer a past environment, aligned to NGSS performance expectation 3-LS4-1. It prints 7 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions that each ask different questions, so no two students in the class work from the same page. Print it from the browser or download it as a PDF — no account, no email.

Set 11 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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What the Quarry Held

3-LS4-1

NameDate

Read the record, then answer the questions.

1.Read the record, then answer the questions.

What the Quarry Held

A list of fossils found in one rock layer at a quarry, from the museum's record card. FOSSILS IN ONE LAYER Ammonites ............ 24 Sea urchins .......... 11 Fish scales .......... 7 Fern fronds .......... 0 Land animal bones .... 0 The rock is a fine gray limestone.

  1. 1. What claim does this record support?
  2. 2. What kinds of living thing are in this layer?
  3. 3. What would you expect in a layer that was once a forest?
  4. 4. How many land animal bones were found?
2.Why compare a fossil with a living organism?
  • A.To see which is older
  • B.A living relative shows how the fossil organism probably lived
  • C.To make the fossil heavier
3.Mammoth bones are found with thick woolly hair. How was a mammoth unlike a living elephant?
  • A.It could fly
  • B.It had thick hair for a much colder climate
  • C.It lived in the sea
4.Fossil sea urchins look almost like living ones. What can you say about how they lived?
  • A.They probably lived on the sea floor, as living ones do
  • B.They lived in the air
  • C.They lived in deserts
5.Some fossils are of organisms with no living species at all. What does that tell you?
  • A.Fossils are not real
  • B.Some kinds of living thing that once lived have died out
  • C.Every kind of living thing is still alive
6.A fossil fern is found in a cold, dry place today. What does it suggest about the past?
  • A.The place was once warm and wet enough for ferns
  • B.Ferns like cold deserts
  • C.The fossil was carried there yesterday
7.A layer has fossils of fish but no land animals. What was this place like then?
  • A.It was under water
  • B.It was a forest
  • C.It was a dry desert

LessonPrint · 3-LS4-1 · Set 11 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — What the Quarry Held

Set 11. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Fossils give evidence of the organisms and the environments of long ago. 2. Sea creatures: ammonites, sea urchins and fish. 3. Fern fronds and land animal bones rather than sea urchins. 4. No land animal bones at all.
  2. 2.A living relative shows how the fossil organism probably lived
  3. 3.It had thick hair for a much colder climate
  4. 4.They probably lived on the sea floor, as living ones do
  5. 5.Some kinds of living thing that once lived have died out
  6. 6.The place was once warm and wet enough for ferns
  7. 7.It was under water

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to 3-LS4-1 of the Next Generation Science Standards.