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Earth History, Timelines, and Layers in the Earth
Asa Packer Elementary
School, Academic Year 2011-2012
Grade K |
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Dr. DeLeo came into our classroom and told us about the history
of the Earth, and how scientists know so much about
the Earth’s past. We already knew that there were
dinosaurs and other animals on the Earth a long time
ago that are no longer around today. Many of us even
knew what the word “extinct” means. It means
that those plants or animals no longer live today -
they all died. The dinosaurs disappeared - went
extinct - a long time ago, about 65 million years ago. |
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Dr. DeLeo used a computer and a projector in our classroom, and he even showed movies! We asked a lot of questions! He began the computer slide show by describing "timelines" to us. A timeline is like a clock, only instead of a circle, it is a line. He reminded us that a line that goes from left to right is called a "horizontal" line!
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| These pictures show timelines for a day in school - the one in the middle for morning (AM) Kindergarten, and the one on the far right for afternoon (PM) Kindergarten. |
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In order to make sure that we really understood the timeline, Dr. DeLeo asked us to point to places on the timeline that were not labeled. For example, he asked us to point to where we would brush our teeth before going to bed. We knew that we should point to a spot just before bedtime, and not after we went to bed. Nobody brushes their teeth while they are in bed sleeping! |
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You might call a clock a "time circle" instead of a timeline. The numbers go around in a circle on a clock, as shown below on the left, but they go in a straight line on a timeline. A timeline that goes longer than one day is more like a calendar than a clock. You can string seven days together to make a week. In fact, a calendar is just one-week timelines, placed one on top of another! Dr. DeLeo had some of us make believe we were teachers. We described calendars to the rest of the class. |
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Dr. DeLeo showed us a timeline labeled by the letters J F M A M J J A S O N D, as shown on the far left. We figured out that these were the first letters of the twelve months in a year, January, February, ... This is a timeline for one year! |
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It's fun to make timelines using photos or drawings. The timeline to the right shows Dr. DeLeo's life in photos and drawings. Can you make a timeline of your life? |
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| Dr. DeLeo gave us each a paper with boxes so we could make a timeline for one of our school days. These photos show the AM kindergarten. The first box shows us waking up, the second having breakfast, and the third going to school. |
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| These photos show the PM kindergarten class. The first box shows us having lunch, the second going to school, and the third sitting on the carpet at school. |
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The timeline for human life on Earth is a lot longer than the timeline for Dr. DeLeo's life, and the timeline for planet Earth is much, much longer than that! |
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| To the right are some timelines that cover many, many years! The one just to the right is for 20,000 years, and the one on the far right is for the age of the Earth, over four billion years! |
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Dr. DeLeo told
us that we could tell a lot about what happened in the
past by digging underground. We learned that the Earth’s
surface is made of layers of dirt. The deepest layers
are the oldest because they were laid down first. This
is just like making a sand bottle using layers of colored
sand. The bottom layer goes in first. We knew that –
we’re really smart!! |
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So, if you dig down deep into
the Earth, you are actually looking back in time. Often,
we don’t need to dig since nature sometimes carves
away the ground for us. You can often see the layers easily.
We find the remains of plants and animals (fossils) in
the ground. The ones that lived a really long time
ago leave fossils really deep underground. And the modern animals, like kitty cats, would be near the top. |
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| Dr. DeLeo showed us a fossil of an animal called a trilobite, and we all got to pet it. Trilobites no longer live today; they are extinct like the dinosaurs. To the right and below are pictures of us petting the trilobite. |
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We had lots of fun learning about timelines and layers
in the Earth! We can't wait until Dr. DeLeo comes back with more fossils!
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I hope you have enjoyed this web presentation as much as we enjoyed sharing the actual learning experience with your son or daughter. Although we have endeavored to exclude photographs where permission has been denied, it is possible for errors to occur. If you would like us to remove a photograph of your son or daughter for any reason, please send me an e-mail message at lgd0@lehigh.edu or call me at 610-758-3413, and we will remove it promptly. Please note that we will never associate a child's full or last name with a photograph except in circumstances where special permission was explicitly provided. Thank you. Gary DeLeo. |
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