(bouncy music) - Hey there scientists, welcome to Room 9, our region's largest classroom.

My name is Mrs. Newby and I teach at Flynn Park Elementary School which is in the school district of University City.

Today, I'm going to be teaching science for 3rd Grade but as always, everyone is welcome to learn with us and I'm so happy you are here with me today.

So today we were inside because I was exploring a kit that I recently got a different fossils.

And these fossils I realized were all from our regional area, so around this St Louis area.

And I started to wonder and notice something.

So a lot of those science skills that we've been doing within these videos of noticing and wondering some things really kind of started flowing in my head as I was exploring with this kit here.

And I know in the past I've gone to different creeks around the area and just different places and I've noticed different types of fossils.

And I know fossils are imprints of a particular animal or organism that was dead.

So, and it just kinda like stuck there for a long time and as time went by, it is kind of like imprinted in or on a rock, which is kind of cool.

So I was taking a look at these fossils and these are all St. Louis Missouri fossils that were found in this area.

And I wanted to do some research about them and kind of explore the different types of organisms or fossils that used to be or maybe still are in our area.

So the first one that I saw which was really cool is this shark tooth.

I'm sure you guys see lots and lots of shark teeth.

It's kind of a little, isn't it, it's pretty small.

I've seen some people have like sharp teeth necklaces or things that look like the shape of a shark tooth cause it's kind of a cool shape.

So I found this one and I also was able to go and find some pictures of these types of organisms that were found and have fossils now.

So here's a shark or even just like a ray.

So that's the first fossil that I found.

The second one that I found on here is called the brachiopod and it looks like this.

Would you guys notice this looks like?

First thing I thought whenever I saw this was, Oh it's like a seashell.

It was like a seashell.

And when I looked up a picture for it it is a shelled animal.

That's kind of the description that was given.

So it's kind of like a shelled animal.

Look how different this look.

That's kind of cool.

And I know seashells or any type of shelled animals also require lots of water too, of course, so of sharks.

So that was kind of interesting.

The next one is algae.

So on this rock, you'll see, or on this fossil here, you'll see...

If you kind of take a little closer look at it.

There's like different patterns and different things on this rock or fossil and this is considered algae.

It looks like crystals at one corner and there's like different colors and just different like layers.

It's pretty cool.

And I found a rock here.

It's like a tiny green plant that lives in clumps so you probably see an algae that looks like this.

The next one I saw looked very similar to the brachiopod and it is called the valve.

So again, it kind of looks like a shell.

It's pretty cool, again there's like some little bumps on it too And again, it's kind of shaped like a seashell.

And when I looked this one up, I recognize them right away.

I recognized what they look like when they're alive.

Have you guys seen these?

They're clams.

I've seen these and I still see them.

So I already know that these for sure are still alive.

They're still in existence.

The next one was a gastropod.

That's pretty cool.

Now this one, when I was like looking super close at it there are so many things on this thing.

First look at this like swelly thing.

That's kind of cool.

There's all kinds of like things embedded in this rock or fossil.

It's pretty cool looking.

Oh, there's one here on this side also.

Do you see that?

It's pretty cool.

So I looked this one up too.

I've never heard of gastropods before so I wanted to look it up to see what it looks like.

And it's this little cute snail or slug.

Now my printer is not perfect in color but you can kind of see that it's a little snail.

Isn't that cute?

It's a snail or slug.

I see these around still.

Another cool one that I didn't think could be possible to make a fossil out of was wood.

It's called petrified wood.

So after a long time, if there's like a tree stump or just like an old piece of wood, it can turn into a fossil.

I thought that was pretty cool and I noticed that.

So this is the petrified wood.

And you know how whenever you cut down a tree you can kind of see the rings to notice like how old it might be?

Well, this one I'm kind of thinking that there might be those also on this fossil.

I thought this was pretty cool that this used to be wood at one point and now it's just a rock.

It looks like a rock.

I can kind of see those lines on those layers.

And I looked up what it could be even before this what it would look like and it literally looked like a tree stump that just turned into a rock.

Isn't that cool?

Now my thinking is that obviously we still have trees around in Missouri, but this type of tree, this species of the tree most likely is extinct.

But yeah, it's from a tree.

It's pretty cool.

The next one was a cephalopod.

These are some fancy science words.

This one looks really cool.

It looks like a cylinder, but then it looks like there's like a kind of like swoops down on the side here.

But notice this thing here.

Now again, this used to be a living organism.

This used to be alive at one point, just round and it caves in over there.

And when I look this one up, you guys ready to see what this thing looked like?

It's an octopus or squid.

That's kind of cool.

I've never seen these in Missouri though.

So again, I kind of got me wondering, cause then I went back and I looked at some of the other ones, like a shark.

Have you seen a shark in Missouri?

Or a shelled animal?

I don't think I really see very many shelled animals besides maybe those clams.

Algae I see, like in lakes, I think we still have lakes and creeks and stuff that you can see algae and even if you have like a fish tank you can kind of start to see algae.

But the clams I noticed are snails.

I'm not really sure.

I feel like I see them more around like watery areas.

Petrified wood are wood tree stumps but that octopus and squid like really got me.

I'm like, am I sure that these seashells or these fossils are from the Missouri area?

So I thought that was really interesting.

And once I got to that point I just started asking myself like, why was an octopus Missouri at one point?

I'm going to write down some things that I noticed and wonder so far.

And I think there's still more fossils that I want to kind of go through but let's kind of take a step back and start wondering and asking some questions.

So I noticed that a lot of these animals, these organisms or fossils so far at one point used to live in water.

So organisms, I'm going to say, need water to survive.

And the organisms I'm talking about are the ones from his fossils.

I also want to ask a wondering question.

And my question is, why were these organisms in Missouri?

That's kind of strange to me.

We don't have very much water.

I mean, we have creeks and maybe the rivers that we have and just some little ponds and stuff but a shark can't be found in those.

They need actually like salt water.

So why were they in Missouri at one point?

Why were these organisms in... and I'm going to put it MO, short from Missouri.

Why were these organisms in Missouri?

You know what, something else I noticed.

Some of them are extinct like... Let's see so far.

Some of them aren't kind of not necessarily extinct fully but they're extinct in Missouri.

So like for example, my shark friend here, he's extinct in Missouri, his relatives and the other organisms that are kind of related to him are in other parts of the world.

They're in seas, all in all parts of the world.

So are these octopi and squid they are also in existence.

They still exist.

They're relatives still exists.

We see them today, but we don't see them in Missouri.

So we've considered them extinct in Missouri.

So I want to write that down.

Some are extinct in Missouri.

And I said some, because I know for example, like the the clams and the algae, they're still in Missouri so they're not considered extinct within this area.

So let's go ahead and move on.

The last one we did was the octopus or squid.

The next one we have is coral.

And I think if you've been to an ocean or to a beach or something, at the bottom of those oceans you'll notice some really cool corals.

So this is the fossil.

This is what it looks like when it turns into a fossil, it's kind of cool.

It looks like an ice cream cone, doesn't it?

Just pop some ice cream on top there and enjoy it.

It's kind of funny.

But if you look closer too, you'll notice some lines, and again, my printer is not perfect but a picture of coral kind of like that.

It looks like it's like kind of flying or being blown by the wind but the water currency usually kind of let it allow it to kind of dance in the ocean.

So it's kinda cool.

And again, these aren't in Missouri anymore, but why were these fossils found in Missouri?

If the fossils were found in Missouri that means that at one point they used to be here.

So we still have coral, we still see them in oceans, but not so much in Missouri.

So again, they are extinct in Missouri.

Another one is an ammonite.

This one is really cool and it's pretty smooth.

It's really little, it's really dark too, look that it's pretty dark.

It looks like there's something on the back of it right here.

And again, over time it was probably on something for a really long time.

Before became a fossil it kind of related to an octopus or squid.

You want to see what it look like?

It's pretty cool looking.

That's what the ammonites look like.

And these for sure are not found anywhere.

So not only in Missouri but all over the world they're just not in existence.

So we considered these extinct.

So that was an example of one that is extinct when I looked it up.

And the last one is a crinoid.

These were pretty cool.

This one had a lot of texture to it.

So here's the biggest piece I had in his kit from a crinoid.

And again, there's all these bumpy layers and it looks like it was probably like an animal that was probably long, there's like these textured lines here, super bumpy, super cool.

And when I looked this up this one is considered the Missouri fossil because there's lots of these around.

And if you go into creeks today you'll probably be able to find some crinoid fossils.

And this is what they look like.

Imagine going somewhere and being in some water, and this is found in water, and seeing something that giant.

These are also related to starfish.

So again, starfish, I know live in oceans.

They don't live in lakes or rivers or creeks.

So these are not found in Missouri anymore.

The fossils are found in Missouri but the live ones are not found in Missouri but their relatives like starfish are found in oceans.

So again, it kind of got me curious why these organisms once in Missouri when they were alive?

So this fossil kit was super, super cool.

I definitely plan on maybe going and exploring in some creeks to see if I can find actual fossils that are still in nature.

Now, these, a lot of cool scientists were able to collect throughout and create a kit to kind of make it easier.

But I know for a fact that if we go and explore in nature we'll definitely be able to see some more fossils that are just laying around, which is kind of cool because if an organism dies and it just stays there over and over it over a long period of time it's eventually going to embed in that stone on that rock.

And you'll be able to see an indention and kind of like the shape of what that organism looks like.

So I have a cool article here, usually I have a book but I actually have this cool article that was written by Washington University- Institute for School Partnership.

And they came up with some pretty cool facts and just research about ancient Missouri.

So since we live in this area it'd be interesting to know what this area looked like.

Do you think that this area always looked like this?

Imagine your neighborhood, imagine where you're living right now.

What do you think It looked like a hundred years ago?

Were there buildings in that area?

What do you think it looked like 500 years ago or maybe a thousand or maybe millions and millions of years ago?

Have you ever thought about that?

It is mind blowing how crazy this area has changed over time.

And it takes a long time for things like this to happen.

But this article definitely helps us kind of know what happened at the beginning.

What did Missouri look like way before we even existed?

And kind of like, as it progressed what did it start slowly changing into?

So the question is asking what did Missouri look like a long, long, long time ago?

And how did it change over time?

So at the beginning, it's kind of cool it has a picture of the crinoid on there.

At the beginning, it was an ocean.

Whoa, that total sense!

That already answers our question.

All of these fossils were found in Missouri because Missouri used to be an ocean.

This whole entire area used to be filled with water.

Can you imagine that?

This the land that we step on now was once covered in water and it used to be an ocean.

So that explains exactly why all of these water organisms were found, all the fossils were found in here.

Let's read to see what they found.

It says what we now know as Missouri used to be covered by a warm, shallow ocean millions and millions of years ago.

During this time Missouri was home to marine life like crinoids, corals, and starfish.

That makes total sense.

It's kind of crazy to imagine that there used to be a ton of water in this area.

The whole state of Missouri used to be covered in water.

Now it says that it was a shallow ocean so it wasn't very deep, maybe it wasn't as deep as the oceans that we see now but it was still considered an ocean and that's why a lot of these organisms were found.

The fossils were found here in Missouri.

Over time, it started to change even more.

And the next section is dinosaurs in Missouri.

So there used to be dinosaurs here.

As time went on the continents began to move.

This raised our land out of the water it used to be under.

So the land actually was raised or lifted up.

So it kind of got us out of that water which it was shallow to begin with.

So it probably didn't take much lifting but as like the continents were kind of moving and shifting it allowed the land in Missouri to also rise up.

Dinosaurs used to roam the land of Missouri millions of years ago which still was very close to a large sea at that time.

So our land was kind of raised up, since it was raised up a little bit there was still kind of like a sea nearby.

So although our Missouri land wasn't in water anymore we were still really close to water cause there was some parts of the area that didn't get raised up as much.

Missouri's official state dinosaur, the Hypsibema which is a duck billed dinosaur found here during a fossil dig.

So we actually have a state dinosaur, which is really cool.

Look at what it looked like.

Isn't that cool?

That's really cool.

And I think I have another picture here of a dinosaur and this is most likely what it also looked like.

Can you imagine one of these roaming around in Missouri, crazy, right?

Imagine that area that this dinosaurs is walking on, that's where your house is built.

Now it's kind of funny to think about.

So silly.

And then paleontologist have even found a T.rex relatives in Missouri.

So not exactly T.rexess but relatives of T.rexes.

So animal or dinosaurs that are very similar to T.rexes were also found in Missouri.

So dinosaurs roamed Missouri after it was an ocean, before we existed dinosaurs took over this land, kind of cool.

And again, obviously we know that dinosaurs are extinct but there are still certain animals today that are relatives so such as birds, there's lots of birds that are related to dinosaurs that still exist today but dinosaurs themselves do not exist.

So after the dinosaurs extinct then we get into the ice age times in Missouri.

After the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago Missouri went through some ice ages, animals like mastodons which are related to today's elephants lived in Missouri.

The changes to the land during that time created our rivers.

So during the ice age, after all of that ice melted that's what allowed us to get the rivers that we have such as the Missouri and the Mississippi river.

By 12,000 years ago, the earliest humans to exist came to Missouri because of these rivers.

So a lot of people notice the rivers nearby this land in Missouri and they said, I want to settle here because water is a big important resource for humans to be able to get the things that we need.

So they settled here.

We have found their arrowheads at Mastodons State Park and these humans probably killed mastodons for food.

So here's a cool kind of like a silhouette of a mastodon.

It looks like a giant elephant but it had fur to kind of keep it warm because of course it lived in the ice age.

Really cool looking.

I would love to see one of those in real life.

So now we're going to get into Missouri today.

The Missouri we know today has different types of ecosystems than it had an ancient past.

Today, Missouri has prairies, forests, and ponds with the types of animals you have been studying.

A hundred or more years ago there weren't as many city areas or neighborhoods.

So think about that a hundred or more years ago there weren't all these buildings and neighborhoods and houses.

So even a hundred years ago compared to millions of years ago, timing of things still change.

It changes over time.

There were a lot more wild prairies, forests and wetlands.

Just imagine what your neighborhood looked like before people created the city or town.

Imagine what it looked like 200 years ago?

Imagine what it looked like thousands of years ago?

Imagine what it looked like millions of years ago?

And I know I asked you those questions before but still it is totally mind blowing to think about what our area looked like before we existed, and again, millions of years ago.

There could be fossil clues in your own backyard.

So I think that's a really, really good point.

Anytime you're exploring outside and you notice an indention of something, some type of fossil, even if it looks like a seashell fossil, like that's still a cool fossil and that seashell was alive so long ago.

It takes so much time for a fossil to be created.

So it's really cool that you can literally explore anywhere in your backyard, because again, dinosaurs used to roam around that area.

So you could find so many cool things in your backyard and different parks, near different creeks.

Really cool.

So many of the types of living things from ancient Missouri are now extinct.

So they did die.

However, some still exists today and some relatives of these plants and animals still exist today but they just live in different parts.

They don't live in Missouri anymore because we're not an ocean.

For example, Missouri crinoids are now extinct but their relatives are still alive in other parts of the world that are still covered in water because they need water to survive.

Dinosaurs are now extinct.

Mastodons are now extinct.

But you can still find snails and freshwater clams and mussels whose ancestors lived long ago in parts of Missouri that still have water.

Humans have changed Missouri's ecosystems in the recent past as well.

So humans can also affect the area that we live in, not only the land shifting and the continents kind of moving and raising the land, but humans, us as humans also change.

So whenever we build neighborhoods and environments we kind of change the living organisms that are gonna be in that area where there probably was homes for squirrels and birds and things like that, maybe there's not as many or maybe we try to work really hard to protect the prairies and the forests and the ponds and then you'll notice more and more of these organisms coming to that area to make their home there.

So humans affect an ecosystem but time also affects ecosystems.

It happens over a huge long, long period of time which is really cool to know.

So the cool thing that we learned today is that Missouri used to be an ocean and millions and millions and millions of years ago after it was an ocean and after the land shifted, dinosaurs took over.

So that's kind of cool.

And even after dinosaurs, we had mastodons.

Missouri is a cool, interesting, super awesome place and just knowing the history of it like that is really really awesome to know.

So I really want challenge you.

I want to encourage you to go out sometime, I know the weather is getting nice and warm, you can go out, go to a Creek, go hiking, do something but try to look and keep your eyes open to things that you notice and wonder about the area that you live in because you will be surprised about how amazing our land is.

I hope you had fun with this lesson and learning some amazing things about your home, your homeland, and I will see you next week.

Bye.

(bouncy music) - [Announcer] Teaching in Room 9 is made possible with support of Bank of America, Dana Brown Charitable Trust, Emerson, and viewers like you.