Earth History Curriculum Guide
The Events in the history of the Earth leave traces/clues that can be understood and used to describe the history of the planet.
Earth History Timeline
This activity has students create a timeline using 6 meters of cash register ticker tape. They will lightly color the 4 eras, label important events, and tape or paste index fossils from the New York earth science reference tables.
Burning Down the House
The addition of oxygen into Earth's atmosphere by cyannobacteria led to the creation of banded iron formations. Oxygen was poisonous to life at that time. Once cells could utilize oxygen, they had much more energy at their disposal.
Relative Age Self-Design Quiz
Students use relative age principles to describe the processes that formed a geologic profile, draw the profile as an answer key, and give their "quiz" to another student. Students use a teacher designed rubric to score their quiz.
The Story That Rocks Can Tell
By using prior knowledge of sedimentary rock formation and the agents of erosion and deposition, students use a set of rock samples and the principle of superposition to make observations and inferences. This data is then used to write a story.
Earth History Tours, Inc
Students will use charts and internet resources to gain an understanding of a specific time period. Students are time travel agents creating an advertisement for their geologic time period.
Time Travellers: Adventure to the Archaean
Students will study fossil evidence of life on Earth from the PreCambrian through the Cenozoic. Specifically, and based on information derived from a web site on Archaean life and conditions, students will write an illustrated report.
Travel Past Inc.
Students will study a set of 8 fossils and determine their time-lines and specific ages. They will also consider the bedrock and glacial history of the area and weave a coherent story for the finding of the set of fossils.
The Gaia Theory
Use the data above to construct a graph of the changing percentage composition of Earth's atmosphere since the formation of the Earth.
Here are regents questions for Earth's History. I separated these into multiple choice and short answer.