Science: Background for Teachers
- The Geology Wing (Timeline Resources)
- The
Museum of Paleontology at the University of California,
Berkeley offers this jam-packed and friendly online resource
explaining the history of the earth, showing representative
life forms from the fossil record and tectonics of various
time periods, all organized on a geologic time scale. You
can use the "Geological Time Machine" to jump to any time
period. Under the "plate tectonics" link, don't miss the animations
of how the Earth's
continents shifted over the last 750 million years.
- Geologic Time Line
- The San Diego Natural History Museum offers a concise, easy-to-read summary of the geologic time line. Its two-column format offers side-by-side summaries of the geologic development and the life forms evident within each eon, period, or epoch.
Learning Resources / Extension Activities
- Sequencing Time
- This introductory activity challenges students to make a personal time line. The goal is to help students understand the necessity and process of placing events in sequence.
- What is a Million?
- One of the biggest problems in understanding the magnitudes of time on the geologic scale is simply one of understanding the units. Besides a one with six zeros, what is a million, really? This activity suggests possible visualizations for students.
- Finding an Event in Time
- A twist on the standard build-a-time-line-on-adding-machine-tape activity, this activity helps students understand the huge periods of time that are involved, visualize biological appearances, overlaps and extinctions, and notice the spacing of some of the significant events.
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