Early Apes Are Found

Evolutionary Timelines

STANDARD V: Objective 3

Background Knowledge: None

Objective: In this activity students will build timelines of the history of life in the universe. The timelines are built to scale to help students visually see how life has developed over time.

Equipment and Supplies: 3” cash register tape, each group of 4 need 15.5 meters, colored pencils or markers, metric rulers or meter sticks, glue, textbooks

Safety Issues: None

Duration: 2 class periods (50 minute each)

Procedures for Teachers:

1. Assemble needed supplies 2. Cut 9 strips of adding tape 15.5 meters long 3. Divide students into groups of 4 4. Pass out one student sheet to each student 5. Give each group adding tape and a set of the pictures to be placed on the timeline 6. Allow students sufficient class time to build timelines 7. Students may need to use their books to help them answer the analysis questions.

Scoring Guide: Class time used efficiently: 20 points Timeline assembled correctly: 20 points Neatness and Color: 10 points Total: 50 points

Answers to Analysis Questions: 1. These heavier elements were fused together inside of stars 2. 1.3 billion years apart. Eukaryotic cells contain a nucleus. Because of this, these cells can build much more complex organisms. 3. Carbon dioxide was important because it is necessary for photosynthesis, it eventually helped lead to the formation of photosynthesizing prokaryotes like the blue-green algae 4. Fossils were scarce because nothing had hard shells before that point, nothing to fossilze all were soft-bodied 5. 435 mya, in order for this to happen they might have found things like internal fertilization and resistance to drying out to be important. 6. 22.5 mya and the expansion of the savannah 7. Not a huge one, we didn’t come around until very recent history 8. The last 1 billion years Student Sheet Evolutionary Timelines

Name:______Period:______

Purpose: In this activity you will, based on current scientific theory, assemble a scale model, timeline of the universe from the Big Bang to the present.

Background Information: Life developed many billions of years ago, beginning with the smallest particles which compose matter to the most complex eukaryotic organisms alive today. Scientists use mathematical and physical theory to help them construct how the universe began. They use the fossil record to help establish the development of life on earth.

Prediction: If the universe formed 15 BYA (Billion Years Ago), during which billion years do think the most rapid expansion of life occurred?

Procedure:

1. Measure as accurately as possible 15.5 meters of 3” wide cash register tape. 2. Measure 25 centimeters from one end draw a line straight across the tape and label it "Present" or "Now". 3. Accurately measure and label the years ago every 10 centimeters (100 million years), make and label time markers (lines straight across the tape) until you reach the 5 meter mark (5 billion years ago). 4. At the 5 meter mark change the time markers to every 50 centimeters. Do this until you reach 15 billion years ago. 5. Go back and use a darker line to show the billion year marks. (1000 million = 1 billion) 6. Color the drawings representing major events in time before you cut them out. 7. Cut out the drawings of the major events in the history of time. Expose the arrow in the bottom left-hand corner. 8. Start at the "Big Bang" and paste the drawings on the timeline moving toward "Now". Paste the drawings on the timeline area that corresponds to the time shown on the drawing. The arrow should be closest to the "Now" line, the top of drawing closest to the "Big Bang" line, don't place the drawings sideways on the timeline. It is easy at first, the events seem to be rather well spaced out. You can glue the backs of the drawings completely down on the timeline. As you will find out, however, the last 1.5 meters (1.5 billion years) gets rather crowded and you must glue just the bottom edge (the edge with the arrow) to the paper. The last twenty or so drawings will take on the appearance of pages of a book if this is properly done. Analysis Questions:

1. How did Hydrogen and Helium, products of the Big Bang form into the heavier elements like Carbon, Nitrogen, and Oxygen, which make up our bodies?

2. How long after prokaryotic cells formed did eukaryotic cells finally emerge? What are the significant differences between these two types of cells?

3. Why was the formation of carbon dioxide important and what did it lead to?

4. Why do you think fossils were scarce until around 500 MYA?

5. When did the first organisms appear on land? What adaptations do you think were important for this transition?

6. When were early apes first found to exist and what geographical feature did their appearance coincide with?

7. What role do humans seem to play in the grand scheme of things?

8. Where on your timeline is the majority of life and diversity located?

Conclusions: Please explain 2 concepts you learned by doing this activity. Be sure to use complete sentences in your explanation. Early apes are found. Savannas expand Photosynthesis by blue-green bacteria. Oxygen Prokaryotic cells (No nucleus, small) diversify: forms in the atmosphere but immediately Bacteria-like blue-green bacteria diversify. ~22.5 MYA reacts with molecules in the ocean and crust of the Earth. The actual atmospheric oxygen did not start to increase until, almost a billion ~2500 MYA years later, that is when the ozone layer started to form!

~3000MYA

Earliest life. Prokaryotes Prokaryotic cells diversify. More complexity is Sexual Reproduction is evident. evident. More complex biochemical pathways. Foundations to future eukaryotic cells ~3500 MYA established. Ozone layer finally starts to form ~1000 MYA in the atmosphere.

~2100 MYA

Reptiles radiate, new forms appear. Plant and Animal Domestication by Homo sapiens First stone tools discovered with human ~280 MYA remains. ~0.01 MYA (10,000YA) ~1.8 MYA

Shell-bearing marine invertebrates dominate. Reptiles appear, amphibians and insects Vertebrates appear, armored jawless fish Multi-cellular organisms appear. Extra-cellular matrix. First radiate. Coniferous trees appear appear. algae (not blue green bacteria, but eukaryotic algae) Grypania appear. Algae cysts form shortly thereafter ~500 MYA ~345 MYA ~2000 MYA Monkeys appear. Early dinosaurs evolve. Mammal-like reptiles Amphibians, insects, primitive trees, forests evolve. Cycad and conifer trees dominate ~37.5 MYA appear on land. ~225 MYA ~395 MYA

Marine invertebrates radiate. Shell-bearing Highly specialized dinosaurs radiate animals appear. First birds appear. Dinosaurs radiate. Reptiles found on land, air and sea. ~135 MYA ~470 MYA ~180 MYA Jawed fish first appear. Armored fish Very early primates appear. Archaic mammals dominate. dominate. Land plants, giant ferns, arthropods Early primates radiate invade the land. ~64 MYA ~435 MYA ~53.5 MYA

Dinosaurs become extinct (except for birds-therapods) Single eukaryotic Cells appear (possess a nucleus, "prokaryotic" Primitive humans diverge mitochondria and chloroplasts) ~65 MYA ~2200 MYA ~4.9 MYA -+

Miller's molecules: amino acids, nucleic acids Solar System Accretion Disk forms from nova and, fatty acids are formed from simple Development of protocrust, protohydrosphere and debris (star dust). The Sun "lights up". atmospheric Oparin's molecules. protoatmosphere, Meteorite impacts continue. ~4000 MYA ~4800 MYA ~4300 MYA

"Millers Molecules" polymerize into RNA, Angiosperms the flowering plants appear and radiate DNA (The Replicators) and proteins. Oparin's molecules: methane, ammonia, to become the dominant plant life on Earth. carbon-dioxide, hydrogen, water etc found in ~3800 MYA the atmosphere and oceans. ~120MYA-Now

~4200 MYA

Big Bang Zosterophyllum, aquatic plants radiate. ~409 MYA 15000 MYA Psilophyton a primitive land plant ~400 MYA

Devonian forest, fern-like leaves and lycopods. Some typical Mesozoic plants, Williamsonia, Pennsylvanian forest, tree ferns, seed ferns, Ginkgos and Cycads ~368 MYA lycopods, horsetails and conifers (early relatives of redwoods, spruces and pines). ~208 MYA These forests fossilized and made the coal seams that powered the industrial revolution.

~320MYA Primary stars form from huge condensations of Hydrogen and Nucleosynthesis occurs within giant primary stars. 75% Hydrogen and Helium gas produced from the Big Bang. Temperatures and 25% Helium, the products of the Big Bang event condense into huge pressures build and nuclear fusion occurs. The larger the star the fusion reactors. Hydrogen is fused into more helium.... temperatures and faster and hotter the fusion progresses pressures increase, helium is then fused into larger and larger atomic nuclei.... the periodic chart is born! ~9000 MYA

~10000 MYA