How did the lab activities help you answer the lesson question: How are relative and absolute dating methods used to determine the age of rocks and fossils? What did you learn from conducting this lab?

Answer:

The lab activities demonstrated that relative dating uses principles like superposition and index fossils to determine the order of events and the relative age of rock layers. Absolute dating, through methods like radioactive decay and mass spectrometry, provides a specific numeric age in years. By combining these methods, scientists can build a chronological history of Earth and understand the sequence of biological and geological changes over time.