Log-In and Go to the Webquest Site

Log-in and go to the webquest site:

USE THIS AS A HOME PAGE FOR ALL LESSONS- http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/students.php

This will open the University of California Museum of Paleontology website. You will see icons for thousands of pages of content about the history of life on Earth. Click on Understanding Geologic Time.

Use this website to fill in the following information:

1. The Earth has a ______.

2. The Earth is ______of years old and a lot has happened in that time.

a. Earliest Life: ______years ago

b. Early Land Plants: ______years ago

c. Largest Mass Extinction: ______years ago

d. Dinosaur Extinction: ______years ago

e. “Lucy” Early Hominid: ______years ago

3. Putting events in ______is important. List the events in order from the pictures: ______In the U.S. history timeline, records were kept of the events as they happened; so it was easy to use this evidence and put them in order.

4. The vertical timeline shows each event in______order, but with an ______or absolute date of when it happened we can be more specific.

5. Relative time is recorded in ______. Each of these rock layers represents a period of time in Earth's history, so the entire ______of layers is another ______.

6. All over the world, rock layers are ______on top of layers that were already there. As more and more layers are deposited, the older rock layers end up at the bottom of the sequence and the newer ones toward the top. In geology, this is referred to as the Law of ______.

7. ______of the events in Earth's history is found within the rocks. ______buried within the rock layers are evidence for the events in Earth’s history.

8. ______("three lobes") are so called because their bodies are divided into ______lobes: a middle lobe and one on either side. They first appeared about ______years ago. 9. Brachiopods are ______animals that look a bit like ______. They are still common in cold waters today, but the height of their diversity occurred about ______years ago.

10. The eurypterids were one of the fiercest predators in ancient seas. Some reached more than two meters (six feet) in length, making them the largest ______that ever lived. The last ones went ______about ______years ago. 11. These are ammonites, a chambered ______not unlike the living Nautilus. Ammonites went extinct at the same time as the ______, about ______years ago.

Label the fossils in the picture below. Circle the organism that is the oldest. Box the organism that is the youngest.

12. ______gives absolute dates.

So the law of superposition gives us the relative age of the fossils.

We can tell that the brachiopods are older than ammonites and younger than trilobites, but how can we determine when they actually lived?

12. Since the ______composition has changed through time at a certain ______, we can determine how old rocks are by analyzing their chemistry. This process is called ______. Using radiometric dating allows us to find ______ages for particular ______. 13. Which would be the correct age range for the layer we are interested in? ______

14. This is a very useful vertical timeline called the ______Scale.

It represents the entire history of the Earth since its formation, roughly ______billion years ago.

The age range of each ______is determined by radiometric dating. 14. Describe each period:

Pre-Archean refers to the time before the Archean. There is ______at that time.

Archean means original or ______. This is a time when the first ______organisms, like ______, began to evolve.

Go back to the HOME PAGE FOR LESSON- http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/students.php Click on Getting Into the Fossil Record.

Directions: As you navigate through Getting Into the Fossil Record, keep your eyes open for answers to the following questions. Hint: The questions are in order of appearance.

1. Name five kinds of trace fossils.

2. Find the walnut. How did it become a fossil?

3. What happened to the mammoth?

4. Why are the mouse and the jellyfish being compared?

5. Why is it difficult for an organism living in the rainforest to become a fossil?

6. What are two reasons why many organisms never become part of the fossil record? 7. What are two ways that geologic processes can destroy a fossil?

8. Why isn't igneous rock a good place to look for fossils?

9. Find the map of Montana. What are two things to keep in mind when you are looking for a fossil like T. rex? What do the colors and letters represent?

10. You are a paleontologist at a fossil dig site in the Gobi Desert. You find a site filled with many fossilized leaves, teeth, bones, eggs and even footprints from a variety of creatures. BUT you find no trace of insects. One possible explanation is that no insects lived in the Gobi at that time. What is another possible explanation for the lack of insects?

Go back to the HOME PAGE FOR LESSON- http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/students.php

Click on the comic strip “Comic strip: Survival of the sneakiest”

Answer discussion questions:

1. When it comes to crickets, what does fitness mean?

2. Is calling good or bad for a cricket's fitness?

3. Give some examples of selection at work in this cricket story.

4. How does selection favor calling? How does selection favor not calling? Go back to the HOME PAGE FOR LESSON- http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/students.php Click on The Arthropod Story: Answer the Discussion Questions

1. How do we determine if some living things are successful?

2. In your opinion, are arthropods a success? Why do (or don’t) you think so?

3. What is an arthropod? What are the traits of arthropods that make them unique?

4. Why do all arthropods share unique traits?

5. Why was the Cambrian Period an important time in the history of life?

6. What happened to the lineages that originated during the Cambrian?

7. How have jointed limbs contributed to the evolutionary success of arthropods? 8. How has it helped arthropods to have many pairs of limbs?

9. Why aren't there arthropods as big as whales?

10. What is an evolutionary constraint?

Click on Life Has a History

As you navigate through Life Has A History, keep your eyes open for answers to the following questions.

1. Find the information describing the 30 million species of living organisms. Of that 30 million, how many are NOT animals? [HINT: Subtract the total number of animal species currently known.]

2. Find the three lens views comparing the oceans through time. Name one animal common to today's ocean whose relatives were also around 470 million years ago.

3. Find the timeline. How many millions of years did dinosaurs exist on Earth before they became extinct?

4. Find and name at least five things other than bones that can be preserved as fossils. 5. Find a picture of Deinonychus and three of its relatives. What feature do the birds all share that Deinonychus does not?

6. During this tour, you will learn about cladograms. When you reach that point, complete this sentence:

A cladogram is a diagram that shows...

6. Find the bar graph that shows the differences in beak size among three species of Galápagos finches. Name the species of finch that has a beak that can be longer than 15 mm.

7. Find the page showing three graphs side by side. The graph on the right shows an increase in the finch's body and bill size. Why did that happen?

8. What is a quagga and why can't you have one for a pet?

9. What is a nasal passage and how might Lambeosaurus have used his?

Click on Stories from the Fossil Record. Complete the chart below: Evidence Chart

Evidence What it tells us: Past Lives Growth rings tell us the number of years that 1. growth rings in fossil trees or shells individual lived.

2. curled up fossil trilobites

3. the contents of fossil nests

4. fossils of many individuals of the same species together

5. a change in the shape of a feature over time

Geologic Time

1. layers in the rocks

2. index fossils

3. fossil shells on mountain tops

4. identical fossils on widely separated continents

Paleoecology

1. fossil marine animals in the desert

2. shapes of leaf edges

3. tooth marks in fossil shells

4. fossil pollen

Biodiversity

1. fossils of organisms no longer alive today

2. features that are shared by more than one species 3. the extinction of many fossil species at the same time

4. the extinction of one group of organism, like corals, on which other organisms depend