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A Journey Back in Time
Chapter 4 from Prentice Hall's Science Explorer: Earth's Changing Surface, February 2004
Prentice Hall Web Activity: A Trip Through Geologic Time

Suppose you have a travel company that could take people back in time - way back in time. In fact, your time machine can take tourists back millions, and even billions, of years to times when plants, animals and even the continents themselves were much different than anything you can see today. In the Chapter 4 Project, you will create a travel brochure that focuses on a geologic time period of Earth's past. You will also work with others in the class to create a time line of Earth's history.
First, you will choose - with the help of your teacher - a specific time period from Earth's history. Next, you will use books and other resource materials to research that time period. Then, you will create a travel brochure for the time period that includes both written descriptions and illustrations. You will also contribute to a class time line of Earth's history. Finally, you will use your brochure to present our geologic time period to the class.

Project Rules:
- With the help of your teacher, choose a geologic time period about which you will become an expert.
- Make a list of reference materials you could use to find information to complete a travel brochure of the geologic time period you choose.
- Use books, magazine articles, and/or Internet sites to gather information about your time period.
- Create a travel brochure that gives and accurate an comprehensive picture of your geologic time period.
- Create illustrations for the travel brochure. These can be cartoons or realistic pictures. They should be interesting, well-made, and accurate to the time period.

Project Hints:
- As soon as possible, begin making a list of the reference materials you will need to create your brochure. Read widely at first, taking notes of important points each book or article makes. Then concentrate your attention on those sources that you think can provide you with the best information about your geologic time period. Make sure, though, that you use more than one source and that you never directly copy exact sentences from those sources. Your brochure must be written in your own words.
- As you read the reference materials and look at their illustrations, do not concentrate your attention only on animals. Your brochure must be accurate. For instance, flowering plants didn't evolve until the Cretaecous period, so including such plants in an illustration for a time period before that would make your brochure inaccurate. Make sure you get an overall idea of the environment of the time period on which you are working.
- Make your brochure not only accurate, but also fun. Remember, this brochure should be designed to make people want to travel back to your time period.
- For the illustrations in your brochure, you may use colored pencils, markers, water colors, or computer graphics. For the illustrations for the class time line, you could also make three-dimensional illustrations. Give some thought to which materials would represent your period best and also make the brochure and time line attractive.

Geologic Football Field

Scientists believe that Earth was formed from a mass of dust and gas about 4.6 billion years ago. Imagine this time span being represented by a football field with Earth's Formation as one goal line and Today as the other. Each one of the 100 yards on the field would represent 46 million years of geologic time. In this activity, you'll determine where on the field and in time some important events in Earth's history occurred. Follow steps A–C below.

To begin, view the geologic football field.
Complete the table below by determining how many yards from the Today goal line each event on the table would be. (Hint: Divide the number of years ago the event occurred by 46 million years.) On a piece of paper, write your name. Write down and number the events and provide your answer. Example: 1. First life forms - _____ yards from the Today Goal Line (to the nearest tenth).

Geologic Time Table

Online Resources: Make sure to give credit when you use any images.

www.palaeos.com

www.prehistory.com

USGS: Geologic Time

USGS: Geologic Time Scale

Enchanted Learning: Geologic Time

USGS: What is Geologic Time?

Big Ben National Park: Big Ben Through Time

Recent Geologic History of Ring Mountain

Hunting Dinosaurs in the Desert

Black Canyon of the Gunnison: Geologic Time

USGS: This Dynamic Earth

Dinosaur Timeline Gallery

Damien Jones Gallery: Precambrian Ferns

Fossil Museum.com: Images

Offline Resources:
Earth Sciences & Geology = Dewey 500
Fossils & Prehistoric Life = Dewey 600

Atlas of the Prehistoric World , Douglas Palmer, Discovery Books, 1999. R560

Dinosaurs to Dodos: An Encyclopedia of Extinct Animals, Don Lessen, Scholastic, 1999. R560L

Dinosaurs for the New Millennium -A complete look at a mystery mammal. National Geographic, Oct99, Vol. 196 Issue 4, preceeding p1, - Reports on the discovery of a Triconodont skeleton in Liaoning Province, China. Triconodonts as small mammals of the Mesozoic era; Skeletal features; Naming of the tricondont as Jeholodens jenkinsi.

Evolution's Big Bang, "When Life Exploded", Madeline J. Nash, TIME, 12/4/95, Vol. 146. Issue 23, p. 66. 12/4/95.

Geological Time, Grolier Educational, 2000.

How do you get to Pelycosaur Heaven? ("Petrified footprints: A puzzling parade of Permian beasts" by Jerry MacDonald, Smithsonian, Jul92, Vol. 23, Issue 4, p. 70)

The Incredible Journey to the Beginning of Time, Nicholas Harris, Pete Bedrick Books, 1997. R900Har

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Fossils, Giovanni Pinna, Facts on File, 1985. R560Pin

Prehistoric Life, William Lindsay, Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Books, 1994. 560LIN

Uncovering Patagonia's lost world by James Shreeve and Robert Clark, National Geographic, Dec97, Vol. 192 Issue 6, p120 - Discusses the significance of dinosaur fossils uncovered in Patagonia's lost world in Argentina. Fossils recovered, including a tooth from a Giganotosaurus; The relationship of Patagonia's dinosaurs to the creatures that roamed the supercontinent Pangaea; The importance of a new generation of Argentine scientists as of November 1997.

Feb, 05, 2004