EARLY EARTH ENVIRONMENTS

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Each group of students gets a set of the 6 early environment photographs seen below (e.g. print out in letter size and put each in a plastic sheet protector or laminate them).

Each group is also given a small sack containing the same fossils of fossil replicas*. Ideas of some to include:

• trilobites
• coral
• crinoids
• ammonites
• dinosaur claw
• dinosaur tooth
• dino bone shards
• crocodile tooth
• petrified wood
• fern fossil
• fish fossil
• shark tooth

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(*If you need a loaner kit for this activity (those living near Boone, NC) or need one or two fossils that you might be missing from your own collection to carry out this exercise, please contact Marta Toran toranml@appstate.edu at Appalachian State University Geology)

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Students, in their groups, are asked first to organize the early Earth environments in chronological order, starting with the youngest Earth environment first. Then they place the fossils on top of the most likely scene they came from.

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More STEM Resources at http://earth.appstate.edu/outreach

Examples of fossils that can be used for each image:

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1- none, granite rock

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2- trilobites, coral, crinoids, jawless fish, ammonites

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3- petrified wood, ferns, insect fossils

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4- dino bones, croc teeth, megalogon teeth, modern shells

EARTH HISTORY

Note: The images of the Early Earth Environments, when placed in order, should read the word “TIME”

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Questions for Discussion:

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• Which picture shows the oldest Earth? How can you tell?
• Which environment do you think could have supported the first life? What do you think the first type of life was?
• Why is water important for life? How does it help living things survive?
• Which picture out of the four shows the first animals?
• How do scientists figure out what early Earth looked like? What clues do they use?
• How do scientists know which fossils came from which environment?
• Why do you think some environments didn’t have any life?
• Why are some fossils found in certain environments but not in others?
• How do scientists figure out how old fossils are? What clues or tools do they use?

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Wrap-up/ Assessment:

Students create a comic strip using the information they learned in this activity to show how the Earth’s environment and life forms changed over the past 4.5 Billion years (in general terms).

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Photo credits:

Hadean Earth:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BENNU%E2%80%99S_JOURNEY_-_Early_Earth.jpg

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Pennsylvanian Coal Swap:

http://blog.michael-lawrence-wilson.com/wp-content/uploads/blog.michael-lawrence-wilson.com/2011/11/0503-Carboniferous.jpg

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Devonian Reef:

http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/new-devonian-predatory-fish-discovered.html

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Jurassic Landscape:

http://m.gettywallpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Dinosaur-4k-Wallpaper-For-Desktop.jpg

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More STEM Resources at http://earth.appstate.edu/outreach