Skip to content
LessonPrint

Reading the Layers is a free printable Grade 4 science worksheet on using rock layers and fossils as evidence of landscape change, aligned to Common Core standard 4-ESS1-1. 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 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 24 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

Next setLesson plan

One paper per pupil

12345678910111213141516171819202122232425

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

Reading the Layers

4-ESS1-1

NameDate

Read the drawing, then answer the questions.

1.Read the record, then answer the questions.

Layers in the Railway Cutting

A drawing the class made of the rock face beside the railway, from top to bottom. FROM THE TOP DOWN Top layer: soil with modern roots Next: sandstone with ripple marks Next: grey mudstone with sea shells Next: coal with fern fossils Bottom: hard rock with no fossils at all The layers lie flat and one on top of the other.

  1. 1. What is in the layer with sea shells?
  2. 2. Which layer is oldest, and how do you know?
  3. 3. What does the mudstone with sea shells suggest?
  4. 4. What claim does this drawing support?
2.What would you expect below the lowest layer in the cutting?
  • A.Modern soil
  • B.Rock older still, formed before everything above it
  • C.The same soil as the top
3.A layer holds sea shells. What does that suggest about this place?
  • A.Somebody dropped shells there
  • B.The rock is made of shells only
  • C.It was once under the sea
4.Why does the ORDER of the layers matter as evidence?
  • A.Order is not evidence
  • B.It shows which conditions came first and which came later
  • C.It makes the drawing neat
5.A coal layer holds fern fossils. What was here then?
  • A.A swampy forest of plants that later formed coal
  • B.An ocean floor
  • C.A desert
6.Ripple marks are preserved in a sandstone layer. What do they suggest?
  • A.Water or wind moved sand here when the layer formed
  • B.Somebody drew them
  • C.The rock melted
7.The bottom layer has no fossils at all. What does that suggest?
  • A.It formed before those organisms lived here, or in conditions that preserved nothing
  • B.Fossils were removed
  • C.It is the youngest

LessonPrint · 4-ESS1-1 · Set 24 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Reading the Layers

Set 24. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Grey mudstone with sea shells. 2. The bottom layer, because the layers lie one on top of the other. 3. This place was once under the sea. 4. The landscape here changed over time, from sea to swamp forest to dry land.
  2. 2.Rock older still, formed before everything above it
  3. 3.It was once under the sea
  4. 4.It shows which conditions came first and which came later
  5. 5.A swampy forest of plants that later formed coal
  6. 6.Water or wind moved sand here when the layer formed
  7. 7.It formed before those organisms lived here, or in conditions that preserved nothing

More practice for 4-ESS1-1

Use rock layers and fossils as evidence that a landscape changed.

Teaching this next? Reading the Layers is the 55-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 4 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to 4-ESS1-1 of the Next Generation Science Standards.