Lesson Ideas for
8th Grade Earth Science
TESSE 2009
Pat Grant
The clocks in rocks
2. Earth is 4.6 billion years old
 2.1 Earth’s rocks and other materials provide a
record of its history
▪ Fossil record and radiometric dating
 2.7 Over Earth’s vast history, both gradual and
catastrophic processes have produced enormous
changes

The Early Earth and Plate Tectonics video
 5 minute excerpt
▪ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDqskltCixA
E Engage
Preparing Teachers for Earth Science
Which Rock is Older?
http://serc.carleton.edu/teacherprep/resources/activities/relative-dating.html
E Explore
xplore
Picking Common
Events in
Relative Order
RELATIVE DATING OF GEOLOGIC MATERIALS
By Steve Mattox July 2005
Relative Dating Of
Geologic Materials
Relative Age of
Layered Rocks
Relative Ages of Layered Rocks in
the Grand Canyon
Visit Geology of National Parks: 3-D Tours Featuring
Park Geology at
http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/index.html. Students will
need 3D glasses.
Explore More
Who’s on First?
A RELATIVE DATING ACTIVITY
MARSHA BARBER and DIANA SCHEIDLE
BARTOS
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/fosrec/BarBar.html
Fossil record tells a story Record
Using popcorn to simulate radioactive decay
Popping popcorn in your class is an excellent way to
illustrate both the spontaneity and irreversible change
associated with radioactive decay. It helps students to
understand the unpredictability of decay.
Jennifer Wenner, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, wenner@uwosh.edu
http://serc.carleton.edu/quantskills/activities/popcorn.html
http://www.fifeschools.co
m/cjh/staff/laker/docume
nts/radiodating.pdf
Also check out http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/lessons.php?DocID=178
NSTA
www.scilink.org
ESS -018
NSTA--practical and welldesigned lesson plans
Drilling Through the Ages
http://books.google.com/books?id=bOSaEwyZqzAC&lpg
=PA120&ots=xZtMwkWSiV&dq=drilling%20through%20t
he%20ages&pg=PA122#v=onepage&q=&f=false
online tutorial activity
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Lesson 1 - What is
stratigraphy?
Lesson 2 - Correlation
Activity
Lesson 3 -Geologic Time
Lesson 4 - Earth’s History
- Lab
Lesson 5 - Environments
through Time
http://msnucleus.org/membership/html/jh/earth/stratigraphy/index.html
Sample Online Activity
Rock Correlation
Correlate the appropriate rock
units by drawing a line between
the cores.
You are given one clue in defining
bed "A." Color the appropriate
units and name them logically.
Make a legend so your teacher
can easily see the results.
Describe what units are missing in
section 3.
http://msnucleus.org/membership/html/jh/earth/stratigraphy/index.htm
http://earth-time.org/k12.html
http://www.agiweb.org/education/pd/earthcomm-structure.html
After having talked about the geologic time scale, get two volunteers from
the class to hold a rope that is 50 feet long. Say that one end is the
beginning of the Earth (4.6 billion years ago), and the other is today. Then
give out 16 clothes pins and ask various students to put a clothes pin on
the 'time line' at various 'geologic events'. Throughout the activity you can
have students calculate percentages of Earth History for major geologic
events, and compare it to their own ages. On their time scale, the
dinosaurs died only about two 'months' ago! The exercise
is very effective at letting them get a sense of how long
geologic time is, and how 'recently' some major geologic
events happened when you consider a time scale that is
the age of the earth.
Randall M Richardson
University of Arizona, Department of Geosciences
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/time/activities/11585.html
Geologic Time Scale