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Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words · Patrick County, VA

Why I love fossils

Hundreds of dinosaur bones still embedded in the tilted rock wall inside the Dinosaur Quarry building at Dinosaur National Monument. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Fossils" page — read by families in Patrick County, VA.
Hundreds of dinosaur bones still embedded in the tilted rock wall inside the Dinosaur Quarry building at Dinosaur National Monument. U.S. Geological Survey · Public domain
  • This was alive and now it is stone.
  • Nobody saw it happen but we can still tell.
  • It was here before anybody was here.

You can love fossils in Patrick County.

What it really is

A fossil is the shape of something that lived, preserved in rock.

Three things to try today

  1. Press a shell or a leaf into clay.
  2. Take it out and look at the print.
  3. Explain how that is like a fossil and how it is not.
A group stands in the fossil preparation area of a paleontology research laboratory where specimens are cleaned and studied. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Fossils" page — read by families in Patrick County, VA.
A group stands in the fossil preparation area of a paleontology research laboratory where specimens are cleaned and studied. U.S. Geological Survey, Dakota Water Science Center · Public domain

For the grown-up reading this

Patrick County is one of 134 counties in Virginia. Somewhere in that number is a kid who lights up about fossils and has never met another one.

The clay print teaches mold versus cast, which is exactly how most fossils form.

If the kid who loves this is a girl

Read what one popular teacher said to one little girl who took out the classroom trash without being asked — and what that girl did with the rest of her life.

Girls are great at math — Patrick County, VA →

Love something else too

The historic quarry building at Dinosaur National Monument, built over steeply tilted Jurassic rock layers that hold a dinosaur bone bed. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Dinosaurs" page — read by families in Patrick County, VA.Why I love dinosaursHurricane Juliette photographed from the Terra satellite as a huge white spiral of cloud with a clear eye at its centre. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Weather" page — read by families in Patrick County, VA.Why I love weatherThe branching channels of the Godavari River delta meeting the Bay of Bengal, photographed by the crew of space shuttle Endeavour. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Rivers" page — read by families in Patrick County, VA.Why I love riversThe dark ragged skyline of a Douglas fir forest at Point Reyes, California, silhouetted against a pale grey sky. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Forests" page — read by families in Patrick County, VA.Why I love forestsA honeybee queen marked with a yellow dot on her back, surrounded by worker bees on the honeycomb. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Bees" page — read by families in Patrick County, VA.Why I love beesA cultivated agricultural field stretching to the horizon with a wetland strip along its edge. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Farming" page — read by families in Patrick County, VA.Why I love farmsAn alligator moving through a brackish waterway at Kennedy Space Center, only its eyes and back above the water. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Animals" page — read by families in Patrick County, VA.Why I love animalsRed leaf lettuce, mizuna mustard and green lettuce growing under pink-white LED lights in the Veggie plant growth hardware. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Plants" page — read by families in Patrick County, VA.Why I love plants

Near Patrick County

Why I love fossils, everywhere in the US · All things to love · STEM jobs you could do · Summer camps in Patrick County