8th Grade Integrated Science Standard: III, Objective 3
Title: A Trip Through Time
Description: Students use the internet to research what different types of environments may have existed in a specific area based on fossils and rock formations. Students then made a visual timeline.
Materials Needed: Student Sheet, Computers with internet access, Poster paper
Time Needed: 20-30 minutes on computers, 60 minutes on posters, art materials (crayons, markers, rulers, etc…)
Teacher Procedures: 1. Hook activity – Ask students to guess what they would have seen if they had been standing in eastern Utah 85 million years ago. Show students some pictures from this website http://geology.utah.gov/utahgeo/geo/geohistory.htm and explain that during the late cretaceous, eastern Utah was covered by a shallow sea. 2. Hand out the student sheet and have the students use the internet to fill in the table and then answer the questions. 3. After students are finished, have them work in small groups to make a visual timeline poster for a location in fictitious Strangeland. They do not need to include dates, just draw accurate pictures, in the correct order, of what their location looked like from the ground in the past. 4. Have the students do a Gallery Walk, hanging their posters up and walking around to look at other’s posters.
Scoring Rubric or answer key:
1. Filled out student sheet correctly and completely………………………………5 2. Participated with group……..……………………………………………………...5 3. Poster is complete and neat………………………………………………………5 Name ______Per. __ Date: ____ Integrated Science 8 Honors
A Trip Through Time
Introduction: You are a paleontologist trying to discover the history of Strangeland County. You are digging down through several layers and in the table below are the things you have found. Your job is to describe what Strangeland County was like in the past.
After digging down about ten feet you find a layer of Limestone. Using your notes on limestone, describe what the environment may have looked like when the limestone formed. Below the layer of limestone you find the fossil tooth of a Carcharodontosaurus in sandstone. Use this website to find out what this animal was: https://sites.google.com/site/carcharodon tosauruspdx/home/environment then describe what the environment may have looked like when this animal lived. Below the layer where you found the tooth, you find a layer of coal. Using your notes on coal, describe what the environment may have looked like when the coal formed. Below the coal you find a fossil of an ammonite, use this website and then describe the environment that existed when the ammonite lived here. http://www.discoveringfossils.co.uk/Amm onites.htm Below the layer where you found the ammonite fossil, you found a layer of conglomerate, using your notes on conglomerate, describe what the environment may have looked like when the conglomerate was formed. -over- Draw a diagram of the sedimentary rock you have dug through.
Analysis:
1.List the changes to the environment in this region from youngest to oldest.
2. If you were to find seashell fossils at the top of a mountain, what might you conclude about the history of the area?
3. What can the type of rock deposited in an area tell you about the history of an area?
Conclusion: How can the study sedimentary rock layers provide clues to how the surface of the Earth has changed over time?