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What the Rock Remembers is a free printable Grade 3 science worksheet on using fossils as evidence of past organisms and environments, aligned to Common Core standard 3-LS4-1. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions that each ask different questions, so no two pupils in the class work from the same page. Print it from the browser or download it as a PDF — no account, no email.

Set 17 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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One paper per pupil

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

What the Rock Remembers

3-LS4-1

NameDate

Draw a line from each find to what it shows.

LessonPrint · 3-LS4-1 · Set 17 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — What the Rock Remembers

Set 17. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Fossil footprints in dried mud — C (An animal walked across soft ground here) 2. Coral fossils in rock on a hillside — D (A warm shallow sea covered this land) 3. Ammonites and sea urchins in one layer — B (This place was once under the sea) 4. Fern fronds and tree trunks fossilised — A (This place was once a warm wet forest)
  2. 2.1. Pollen grains preserved in peat — A (Which plants grew nearby at that time) 2. No land animal bones in a sea layer — C (Evidence that this was not dry land) 3. Mammoth bones in gravel — D (The climate here was once much colder) 4. Fish fossils high in a mountain — B (The rock formed underwater and was later lifted)

More practice for 3-LS4-1

Use fossils as evidence of what lived where, long ago.

Teaching this next? What the Rock Remembers is the 55-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 3 worksheets

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