Science 2nd Semester
Week 2 (Geologic Time, Pretest)
Jan. 12-16
Monday (12)
Learning Target - I can read and explore a variety of interactive websites about geologic time and can
write several sentences describing what I learned from each website.
Students will go to the computer lab to explore Geologic Time at the Understanding Geologic Time
website by University of California Berkeley. Students will al so spend time exploring a variety of
interactive websites about the geologic timescale. To finish the lesson, the students must write
summaries or interesting facts about each site they visited.
Tuesday (13)
Learning Target - I can show what I know about fossils and earth's history based on my performance
on my pretest.
I can create a personal timeline and can compare it to Earth's geologic timeline.
Students will take a pretest over fossils and earth's history. After students finish the pretest, they will
begin to make a personal timeline similar to the geologic timeline. Students will put events in their life
in sequential order, numerical order, and will separate and name the different divisions. Students will
then be asked to compare their personal timeline to the geologic timeline.
Wednesday (14)
MS-ESS1-4 : Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence from rock strata for how
the geologic time scale is used to organize Earth’s 4.6 billion year old history.
Learning Target – I can construct a scale model of the Earth’s 4.6 billion year history.
To begin class, the teacher will introduce the standard and learning target that will be
addressed. Students will then review the Personal Timeline they created in class on Friday.
Students will use think/pair/share to discuss with a partner the similarities between their
timeline and the Earth’s Geologic Time Scale. Students will then look at and sequence 8-10
items from Earth’s History. (This will be done to confront misconceptions about when life first
appeared on earth and in what order). Finally, students will go outside to construct a scale
timeline of Earth’s History where each 1 meter length of a rope will equal 100 million years.
• To begin this activity, I will ask four students to stand at the 1, 2, 3 and 4 bya areas
marked on the rope while the rest of the class stands at “Today”.
• Then I will hand out flags to students to place along the timeline in the spot they think is
correct.
• After all of the flags are placed, students will walk along the timeline looking at the
events that have been placed. I will also ask students to look at the general placement
of the flags along the timeline.
• When students complete this walk, I will ask students if they saw anything that they
thought was out of order. Students will have a chance to explain their thinking.
• Finally, I will ask the student with the “bacteria” fossil to go stand next to it on the spot
they placed it. I will ask the class to observe. They I will have the student move the flag
to the correct location at 3 bya. Next we will place algae at 1 bya.
• After discussing why there was such a big gap in time before these events occurred and
why life took so long to appear (earth was hot and then it took awhile to get enough
oxygen in the atmosphere), I will ask all students except bacteria and algae to go get
their flags and I will have them place them in the correct location.
• Students will then take a final walk along the time line noticing the huge gap between
the earth’s origins and first life, as well as how crowded with events the last 500mya
has been.
Assessment - Students will reflect on the activity using the 3-2-1 Strategy. Students will write three
things they learned from the activity, two things they have questions about, and one thing they don't
understand
Thursday (15) and Friday (16)
Learning Target – I can use accurate measuring skills to construct a scale model of the
Geologic Time Scale where 1 inch = 100 million years.
Students will work with a partner to construct a scale timeline of Earth. Students will also
research dates using their textbook, school computers, or the Internet to find the dates of
specific events in Earth’s history. Students will place these events on the correct location on
their paper timelines.
Assessment - To assess what students have learned from the activity, students will work independently
to complete an assessment exercise in which they will be given two events. Students will have to
determine if one event happened before or after the other event.