Embedded Files
Objectives
Objectives
Students will understand the following:
Materials
Materials
For this lesson, you will need:
Procedures
Procedures
Adaptations
Adaptations
Adaptations for Older Students:
Challenge students to establish their own scale for the time line.
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions
Evaluation
Evaluation
You can evaluate your students on their findings using the following three-point rubric:
Three points: accurate dating of organism, careful drawing of organism, correct placement of index card on time line
Two points: accurate dating of organism, no drawing of organism, correct placement on time line
One point: accurate dating of organism, no drawing, incorrect placement on time line
Extensions
Extensions
Earth History Trivia
Present this scenario to your students: You are the writer for the game show Catastrophic Events on Earth . Your job is to create activities that will teach and review the catastrophic events that have shaped Earth. You may want to include information about the mass extinctions, the ice ages, volcanic and tectonic activity, comets, meteorites, asteroids, and anything else you can think of that has affected today's ecology and geology. Make game cards with a question on one side and the answer on the other. Play the trivia game in pairs, or divide the students into two groups.
Mountain Creation Debate
Most mountain ranges are reflections of tectonic plate movement, but there is no single widely accepted hypothesis on mountain building. Have your students research one of the following hypotheses: the contraction hypothesis, the expansion hypothesis, the convection hypothesis, and the drift hypothesis. Next have your students pick a hypothesis to support during a class debate.
Suggested Readings
Suggested Readings
Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth
Richard Fortey. Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.
A compelling book by a senior paleontologist at London's Natural History Museum, Life traces the origin and history of life on Earth with unique insights. The author draws upon his own experiences as a paleontologist and writes in a very readable style that holds the readers' interest.
Fanfare for Earth: The Origin of Our Planet and Life
Harry Y. McSween, Jr. St. Martin's Press, 1996.
The author traces the origin of the Earth from its birthplace in the nebulae to the development of evolutionary theory.
Links
Links
Discovery Online: Great Balls of Fire
Provides information about meteorites, has great graphics, plus a quiz about when different meteorites hit Earth.
1st-Order Global Tectonic Elements
Provides maps for each period of the Earth's changing tectonic plates.
Great graphics of Earth's features.
Hamelin Pool Marine Nature Reserve
Features a description of the natural area and the formation of stromatolites.
Lots of information on geology including, maps and image access.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
Click on any of the vocabulary words below to hear them pronounced and used in a sentence.
Definition: One of a group of planetlike bodies whose general orbit around the sun is between Mars and Jupiter.
Context: Asteroids are found between Mars and Jupiter; these celestial bodies probably originated from meteorites.
Definition: A dark gray to black, dense to fine-grained igneous rock that consists of basic plagioclase, augite, and usually magnetite.
Context: Basalt, an igneous rock found in remnants of lava flows has been used by geologists to determine the relationships of land masses and rock formations.
Definition: The crust and upper part of the mantle of Earth.
Context: Our lithosphere continues to change as new landforms are created due to the movement of crustal plates.
Definition: Matter that has fallen on the Earth from outer space.
Context: Meteorites provided the rock material necessary for the Earth to grow.
Definition: Deposits of calcium carbonate hanging from the roof of a cave.
Context: The scientists investigated the stalactites hanging from the roof of the cave because they felt it would give them the age of the cave.
Definition: Deposits of calcium carbonate standing as pillars on the floors of caves.
Context: The stalagmites in the cave formed as calcium carbonate dissolved in water, permeated through the Earth's surface, and was gradually deposited on the cave's floor.
Definition: Laminated sedimentary fossils formed from layers of blue-green algae.
Context: As geologists analyze core samples, they look for stromatolites to assist them in determining the ages of different rock layers.
Standards
Standards
This lesson plan may be used to address the academic standards listed below. These standards are drawn from Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education: 2nd Edition and have been provided courtesy of theMid-continent Research for Education and Learningin Aurora, Colorado.
Grade level: 6-8, 9-12
Subject area: Earth science
Standard:
Understands basic Earth processes.
Benchmarks:
(6-8)Knows that the Earth's crust is divided into plates that move at extremely slow rates in response to movements in the mantle.
(6-8)Knows how landforms are created through a combination of constructive and destructive forces (e.g., constructive forces such as crustal deformation, volcanic eruptions, and deposition of sediment; destructive forces such as weathering and erosion).
(6-8)Knows how successive layers of sedimentary rock and the fossils contained within them can be used to confirm the age, history, and changing life forms of the Earth, and how this evidence is affected by the folding, breaking, and uplifting of layers.
(6-8)Knows that fossils provide important evidence of how life and environmental conditions have changed on the Earth over time (e.g., changes in atmospheric composition, movement of lithospheric plates, impact of an asteroid or comet).
(9-12)Knows effects of the movement of crustal plates (e.g., earthquakes occur along boundaries between colliding plates; sea floor spreading occurs where plates are moving apart; mountain building occurs where plates are moving together; volcanic eruptions release pressure created by molten rock beneath the Earth's surface).
(9-12)Knows methods used to estimate geologic time (e.g., observing rock sequences and using fossils to correlate the sequences at various locations; using the known decay rates of radioactive isotopes present in rock to measure the time since the rock was formed).
Grade level: 6-8
Subject area: science
Standard:
Understands the nature of scientific inquiry.
Benchmarks:
Understands the nature of scientific explanations (e.g., emphasis on evidence; use of logically consistent arguments; use of scientific principles, models, and theories; acceptance or displacement based on new scientific evidence).
Grade level: 6-8
Subject area: geography
Standard:
Knows the physical processes that shape patterns on Earth's surface.
Benchmarks:
Knows the major processes that shape patterns in the physical environment (e.g., the erosional agents such as water and ice, earthquake zones and volcanic activity, the ocean circulation system).
Credit
Credit
Bryan Goehring, an earth science teacher at Blair Middle School in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse