UT Standards Academy Lesson Plan Template:

TITLE – With Grade Level andTopic

GENERAL:

Summary – 3- 4 sentences

Science Curriculum Standard Tie – Disciplinary Core Idea (K-12 Framework)

ILO – Science and Engineering Practice (K-12 Framework)

Cross Cutting Concepts (K-12 Framework)

Math and/or ELA Curriculum Tie

Time Frame: Number of Class Periods – Number of Minutes

Group Size

Technology Tools Utilized

Bibliography

Key Words

INSTRUCTIONAL:

Materials – Quantity and Vendor if necessary

Background for Teachers – Website

Teacher Preparation

Introduction/Attention Grabber

  1. As a class starting activity, play this video
  2. Use these questions as a starter or a discussion:
  3. How old is the Earth based on scientists and radioactive dating?
  4. Why was the Cambrian explosion important?
  5. Which explanation or analogy was easiest for you to understand the age of the Earth? Why?

Geological Column Class Activity: Cut the worksheets found at: (See attachment called Fossil Environments in Utah) into strips.

  1. Split the class into 10 groups, depending on your size about 2-4 students a group.
  2. Each of the ten groups will be given:
  3. A strip of butcher paper or poster paper to represent a rock layer of a specific time period
  4. A small information strip of their rock layer with fossil information, climate and geography of time, and age
  5. Colored pencils, markers, and crayons
  6. Give the students about 10- 15 minutes to quickly draw and diagram the index fossils and time period on their strips as well as a sketch of what the land looked like at the time.
  7. Then, as a class, they place their rock layer in the right order based on index fossils as they flow throughout the geological time column. The decision of the layer placement is first from the group and then approval from the class.

Overview of the Law of Superposition and the Grand Canyon; Index Fossils

  1. Watch Videos of law of superposition and index fossils/geologic column
  2. After showing either video or both, have students write a summary or discuss in small groups the law of superposition and the importance of index fossils in relative dating.

Layers of Time Review Game

  1. This is a fun game that can be played as a class or individually in class or a computer lab. It requires Flash so it cannot be played on an iPad.
  2. Layers of Time Game

Faulting and Folding Website

  1. This website gives an animation and written explanation on how folding and faulting change established rock layers. This animation can be done as a class or individually. After doing the animation, students can discuss or write a summary of what they saw.
  2. The website says it is unsafe when you click on the link but after it loads, it goes straight to the animation.

Photobooth  Padlet Formative Assessment

  1. Students are given a printed picture or download the photo from a class website.
  2. Use picture printed (SEE ATTATCHMENT NAMED: Folding and Faulting Padlet.jpg)
  3. Students manipulate the options of the photobooth app and the picture to create two pictures. One picture is of folding and the other is faulting.
  4. As a teacher, prepare beforehand two Padlets websites to have students post their pictures online of Folding and Faulting and a written explanation of how and what events make these geological features occur. This is a simplified example of a Padlet wall. Please do not have your students post on the example.Example-Reference ONLY

Performance Task

A. Group Collaborative Assignment

  1. (SEE ATTATCHMENTs NAMED: Geological Columns Student Sheet and Geological Columns Teacher )
  2. The students will be working together collaboratively to create and solve a new geological column where folding, faulting, intrusions, and erosion are present. There are four similar landmasses with similar index fossils and layers to help them solve it. However, not all the pages have the same information so they will work together as a group, each member has a different paper.
  3. First students read their own card and discuss their research as the geologist specializing in that area of the Grand Canyon. Collaboratively, they use the smaller pieces of the layers to determine the relative dating and layers of the rocks from oldest to youngest and make a complete geological column together.
  4. This is Formative Assessment to see if they can show how to make a geological column from the evidence of similar geological forms.

B. Writing Prompt

1. After the Performance task, students will complete the writing task using the Evernote app.

You are a famous geologist. A colleague from India sends you a photograph of rock layers that contain fossils. He claims that because he found a human fossil in a lower layer than a dinosaur fossils, that humans were alive before dinosaurs. Write him a letter giving other possible explanations as to why the human fossil was found below the dinosaur fossil.

Possible words to include: folding, faulting, erosion, intrusion, extrusion, uplift

Strategies for Diverse Learners

Extensions

ASSESSMENT:

Assessment Plan

Assessment Rubric –