This activity explores an image of fossil footprints at Laetoli, which serves as a phenomenon for learning about fossil evidence and human evolution.

Laetoli, a paleontological site in Tanzania, is famous for its fossil footprints of hominins: a taxonomic group that includes humans and their extinct ancestors. The image shows hominin footprints discovered at Laetoli in 2015. Fossil footprints like these can be used to infer biological information about the organisms that made them.

The “Educator Materials” document includes background information and implementation suggestions for using the image as a phenomenon. The “Student Handout” includes the image and background information.

The “Resource Google Folder” link directs to a Google Drive folder of resource documents in the Google Docs format. Not all downloadable documents for the resource may be available in this format. The Google Drive folder is set as “View Only”; to save a copy of a document in this folder to your Google Drive, open that document, then select File → “Make a copy.” These documents can be copied, modified, and distributed online following the Terms of Use listed in the “Details” section below, including crediting BioInteractive.