Tiktaalik : Evidence for Evolution Informational Text and Activity

Tiktaalik: Evidence of Evolution of a "Fishapod"

This resource is great to teach your students how early life transitioned from the ocean to the land.

Learners will:

• - explore fossils in order to gain a perspective of evolution 

• - watch several free videos and fossils

• - complete a worksheet

• - complete a think pair share activity

• - informational text and a transitional fossil coloring activity.

⚘ Evolution Curriculum must contain Tiktaalik

Tiktaalik is special because it provides insights into how early life transitioned from the ocean to the land. Although we cannot trace our family tree directly back to Tiktaalik, we know an animal much like Tiktaalik was a direct ancestor to modern humans.

In 2004, up in the Nunavut Territory of the Artic, archeologists discovered the fossilized remains of a an odd creature with a flat head, scales, little arms and it grew up to three meters (9 feet) long. It had the body of a fish and appeared to have four primitive limbs allowing it to crawl on land. Scientists didn’t find just one specimen – but ten all together. Carbon dating informed scientists the animals lived about 375 million years ago in the late Devonian Period.

Archeologists asked the local Inuit tribe to name the fish. A local council of elders known as the Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit Katimajiit were consulted, and they gave Tiktaalik its name, ᑎᒃᑖᓕᒃ, which translates to a large freshwater fish that lives in the shallows, in Inuktitut.

A total of 9 pages

Answer key

•What is so important about a fish? (informational text)

•Color homologous structures (activity)

•Divergent Evolution of Tiktaalik limbs (informational text)

•Think – Pair – Share (group activity)

•Divergent Evolution of Tiktaalik head and neck. (informational text)

•Divergent Evolution of Tiktaalik head and neck (note template)

•Match term to definition (activity)

•Student Self-Assessment