Now that students better understand how scientists use radiometric dating to determine the age of physical items and structures, it is time to look into the deep history of Earth. Students should research the following events, determine when they occurred, and construct a timeline of the events:
- First dinosaurs
- Formation of Mount Rainier
- First hominids
- Break up of Pangea
- First vertebrates
- First life (bacteria)
- First modern humans
- First oxygen in the atmosphere
- First land plants
- First animals
On Friday, we made a timeline of the last billion years of Earth history on the football field:
After we debriefed the timeline exercise back in the classroom, if time permitted, students watched one of the two videos below:
The Art of Science 