Monday 30 June 2008

A time-line in your own backyard

Try our latest Earthlearningidea - 'A time-line in your own backyard'. Pupils are told that the string time-line represents the 4600 million years since the Earth was formed. The pupils are then asked to lay out the pictures in the order in which they think the organisms first appeared in the geological record. They then peg the events on to the string at the time when they think the organism first appeared.
By completing this activity, pupils can:-
- describe the history of life on Earth;
- appreciate how the fossil record provides evidence for the increasing complexity of organisms;
- appreciate the great length of the timescale within which evolution operates;
- explain that humans appeared very recently in geological terms.
Do try it out with your pupils and let us know the results.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I prefer using a toilet roll as it gives a better sense of the large expanse of geological time.

See http://www.nthelp.com/eer/HOAtimetp.html for example