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

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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. All 25 sets ask different questions.

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. How many ammonites were found?
  2. 2. What would you expect in a layer that was once a forest?
  3. 3. What claim does this record support?
  4. 4. What kinds of living thing are in this layer?
2.Mammoth bones are found with thick woolly hair. How was a mammoth unlike a living elephant?
  • A.It could fly
  • B.It lived in the sea
  • C.It had thick hair for a much colder climate
3.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 dry desert
  • C.It was a forest
4.Fossil palm leaves are found in a country with icy winters. What does that suggest?
  • A.The climate there was once much warmer
  • B.Somebody planted them
  • C.Palms grow in snow
5.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.The fossil was carried there yesterday
  • C.Ferns like cold deserts
6.A fossil footprint has three toes and is the size of a dinner plate. What does it tell you?
  • A.A bird is still nesting here
  • B.The rock is new
  • C.A large animal once walked across soft ground here
7.Some fossils are of organisms with no living species at all. What does that tell you?
  • A.Fossils are not real
  • B.Every kind of living thing is still alive
  • C.Some kinds of living thing that once lived have died out

LessonPrint · 3-LS4-1 · Set 5 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — What the Quarry Held

Set 5. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. 24 ammonites. 2. Fern fronds and land animal bones rather than sea urchins. 3. Fossils give evidence of the organisms and the environments of long ago. 4. Sea creatures: ammonites, sea urchins and fish.
  2. 2.It had thick hair for a much colder climate
  3. 3.It was under water
  4. 4.The climate there was once much warmer
  5. 5.The place was once warm and wet enough for ferns
  6. 6.A large animal once walked across soft ground here
  7. 7.Some kinds of living thing that once lived have died out

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