Biological Change

The student will understand that living things have changed over time.

Day 1 Fossils

Activity 1

Use Geologic Time Scale to help students understand how old the Earth is: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/Geologictime.html

Discuss that Earth started out with different plants and animals than we know today that have become extinct over time. Point out the following using the Geologic Time Line:

• 3.9 to 2.5 billion years ago - animals were only single (one) celled
• 540 to 500 million years ago - one of the first complex animals was the trilobite
  • Have students look at drawings of trilobites.
    • http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/invertebrates/trilobite/Trilobiteprintout.shtml
    • trilobite fossil http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gh19/b1510/trilo.gif
• 248 million years ago - first dinosaurs
• 146 million years ago - dinosaurs die out
• 54 million years ago - first mammals
• 24 million years ago - first horses, dogs and bears
• 5  million years ago  - first whale
• 1.8 million years ago  - first man (Mention what a small time man has been on Earth compared to how old Earth is.)

Use a piece of yard as a timeline to illustrate the age of the Earth.  Using a scale of 1 mm = 1 million years, a time line of the Earth would be about 4.6 meters long. Show the ages of the items listed above on the timeline. (Note a mm is the size of the edge of a dime when looking at the side.)

United Streaming TLC Elementary School:  Prehistoric Earth  (Total Time 24:33) - Show Segment 3 Events in Earth's Past (6:11)

Activity 2

Ask students to tell you how man knows about the animals that lived on Earth such a long time ago.
(Encourage students to come up with the word fossil.)
 

What is a fossil?

Go over the definition of a fossil.

Fossils are the preserved remains of plants and animals or traces left by plants and animals such as footprints.

Explain how fossils are made.

1. Some animals were quickly buried after they died in mud or sand

2. Over time more and more sand and mud covered their bodies.

3. The bones and teeth turned into fossils over time.

4. The bone slowly decayed and water than contained minerals soaked into the the empty places. The minerals filled up the bone.

5. The process resulted in a rock-like copy of the original object which is a fossil.

Show video - United Streaming Earth Science Fossils (20:00)

Day 2 Fossils

Activity 1
Go over the different teeth shape - Explain to students this is to help them better understand the fossils that they will be looking at in the next activity.
http://dnr.state.il.us/lands/education/CLASSRM/wild_mammals/pdf/unit2_3.pdf

Activity 2

Using cards have students complete the following activities:
 http://www.fossil-museum.com/fossils/index.php?page=1650&limit=30

• Match animal to fossil of the animal

• Sort cards by carnivore, herbivore, or omnivore

• Sort cards by bird, mammal, amphibian, reptile, or fish

Activity 3

Game - Put skeleton together to form animal http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/beasts/build/jigsaw.html

Activity 4

TCAP Coach Lesson 10 Fossils Page 80-83

Day 3 Extinction and Its Causes

Activity 1 Mass Extinction

Explain to the students what mass extinction is. There have been at least five mass extinctions in the history of life, and four in the last 3.5 billion years in which many species have disappeared in a relatively short period of geological time
 

Enchanted Learning - Extinction http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/extinction/index.html

Use graphic organizer to explain some possible reasons for mass extinction. Have students fill in 4 possible causes of mass extinction. Answer key below.

asteroid hits earth scattering dust-causing fires tsunamis severe storms with high winds highly acidic rain seismic activity volcanic activity block most of the sunlight  for months, and lowered the temperature	climactic cooling furry mammals could adapt cold blooded animals such as dinosaurs could not adjust to colder climate
greenhouse effect methane from deep-sea algae deposits and/or from plant-eating dinosaurs digestion by-products changing the Earth's atmosphere	supernova                          (an exploding star) could have bathed the Earth in deadly radiation

Notes -

245 million years ago a mass extinction occurred on our earth. 90% of all plants and animals were eliminated at this time. A mass extinction could only be caused by a  catastrophic event. What could cause a mass extinction?
 

Which would be the most likely?

• disease

• climate change

• fewer predators

• man

Activity 2 Natural Causes of Local Extinction

Discuss what local extinction is. Local extinction is where a species ceases to exist in the chosen area of study, but still exists elsewhere.

Have students fill in graphic organizer while discussing natural reasons for local extinction.

Answer Key

Major Causes of Extinction - Natural

earthquakes	volcanic eruptions
tsunamis	floods
increase in predators	disease
landslides	changes in sea levels
another species competes for food

Activity 3 Man Man Causes of Local Extinction

Have students fill in graphic organizer while discussing man made reasons for local extinction

Major Causes of Extinction - Man Made

Taking Animals for Profit	kudzu fire ant     Introduced Species
Over harvesting	Hunting and Trapping
Destruction of Habitat	Pollution

If time allows students can cut out the boxes, and mix up the cards. Then they can sort the cards into the three categories: mass extinction, natural local extinction, and man-man extinction.

Day 4 Extinction and Its Causes
 

Review graphic organizers from Day 3.

TCAP Coach Lesson 11 Extinction and Its Causes pages 84-86

Day 5 Relative Age

Activity 1

Show the illustration of rock layers. Point out that the fossils found in the lower levels are the oldest

Who's On First? A Relative Dating Activity http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/fosrec/BarBar.html

Go over the information from http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/glossary/Sedimentaryrock.shtml

Day 6 Relative Age

Activity 1 - Make a model of rock layers.

Activity 2  TCAP Coach Lesson 12 Determining Relative Age pages 87-90

Day 7 Change Over Time

Grand Canyon Photos
http://www.terragalleria.com/parks/np.grand-canyon.html

Weathering - breaking down and wearing away, large rocks are broken down into smaller ones
pictures http://www.postershop.co.uk/Anonymous/Anonymous-Erosion-Weathering-9900108.html

http://maiapatio.googlepages.com/weatheringpics

http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/W/Weathering.asp

http://www.geosci.unc.edu/faculty/glazner/Images/Weathering/weathering.html

http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/_/viewer.aspx?path=hut&name=c01570.jpg

Erosion -  a natural force moves material from one place to another
Slide Show of erosion photos http://managingwholes.com/photos/erosion/pictures/slide01.htm

Glaciers - large bodies of ice that move

http://geology.about.com/library/bl/images/bliceindex.htm

http://www.jaskims.com/alaska_glacier_pictures.html

http://www.terragalleria.com/parks/np.glacier-bay.html

Deposition - when erosion takes land from one area and puts in down in another (Example: sand)
http://www.earthscienceworld.org/images/search/results.html?Keyword=Littoral%20Drift

http://epod.usra.edu/archive/epodviewer.php3?oid=131328

http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~carltape/personal/images/ge136/NavajoB.pdf

Variation - natural changes to plants and animals over time

http://www.jokefile.co.uk/women/evolution.html

TCAP Coach Lesson 13 Evidence of Change Over Time pages 91-94

Day 8 Unit Review and Test

TCAP Coach Chapter 4 Review page 95-96