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Subtopic: Earth's History

Change grade range

Resource	Grade Level	Media Type
Aging Diamonds? In this video from Nature, geological detectives use ancient diamonds to learn more about Earth's inner layers.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Build an Island This interactive resource from NOVA Online shows how an atoll is formed from a volcanic island and describes the role coral reefs play in this process.	6-12	Flash Interactive
Caves: Extreme Conditions for Life This video segment adapted from NOVA raises the provocative idea that if life can exist in the most extreme environments on Earth — such as in dark, toxic caves — then perhaps living things can also survive in harsh environments on other planets.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Climate Change Impacts Alaska Glaciers This video adapted from KTOO takes a look at Earth's warming and cooling cycles and the current atypical trend of warming that is impacting the glaciers in Alaska's Inside Passage.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Continental Drift: From Idea to Theory In this media-rich activity designed to enhance literacy skills, students learn how the theory that explains the position of Earth's continents was established and later modified, and gain important insights into how science and the scientific community operate.	5-12	Student Activity
Dating Lava Flows on Mauna Loa Volcano, Hawaiʻi In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists search for carbonized remains of plants preserved in lava flows to find out how long it has taken rain forests on Hawaiʻi to regenerate after a volcanic eruption.	3-12	QuickTime Video
Deep-Sea Vents and Life's Origins Deep-sea vents are home to life forms that do not rely on the Sun's energy. They depend instead on energy from volcanoes on the ocean floor. This video segment adapted from NOVA hypothesizes that life on Earth may have begun in this extreme environment.	3-12	QuickTime Video
Deep Time Students learn about deep time by visiting an interactive Web timeline, comparing geologic time periods to the calendar year, and setting up a live-action timeline in the classroom.	9-12	Lesson Plan
Deep Time This interactive timeline from Evolution offers a visual representation of the major geological changes, transformations, and extinction episodes in the 4.6-billion-year history of Earth.	6-12	Flash Interactive
Drilling to Antarctica’s Rock Core In this video adapted from ANDRILL, find out how geoscientists get through more than a dozen football fields of ice and water in order to study the rock and sediment beneath Antarctica.	3-8	QuickTime Video
Earthquake Prediction This video segment adapted from NOVA tells the tragic story of two Japanese seismologists who disagreed about the threat of earthquakes in the early twentieth century. Today, seismologists in California offer residents a probability of risk that an earthquake might occur.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Earthquakes: Los Angeles In this video segment adapted from NOVA, animations are used to show how the hills around Los Angeles were formed by earthquakes at small thrust faults that extend outward from the larger San Andreas fault.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Earthquakes: The Prehistoric Record In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a geologist digs a trench along the San Andreas Fault to reveal three thousand years of earthquake history. Information from the layers of sediment may help geologists to predict earthquakes.	3-12	QuickTime Video
The Falls of the Ohio This video from KET examines one of the largest exposed fossil beds in the world, found at the Falls of the Ohio River, near Louisville, Kentucky.	3-12	QuickTime Video
Fossilized Dinosaur Bones This still collage produced for Teachers' Domain features a variety of images of fossilized dinosaur bones, which provide evidence for the existence of these fascinating reptiles.	K-8	Flash Image
Fossils Fossils are indicators of past life. This collection of still images produced for Teachers' Domain features examples of fossils from plants, animals, and insects.	3-12	Flash Image
Fossils: An Ancient Sea in Indiana In this interactive activity from the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, Indiana, examine a piece of the ancient Borden Sea in what is now central Indiana. Explore the types of fossils found there and the clues they offer to ancient life on Earth.	3-12	Flash Interactive
Fun with Fossils Students create their own fossils, and then learn how real fossils form, and investigate what they can tell us about the past.	3-5	Lesson Plan
Geology of Death Valley This video segment from NatureScene examines the landforms of Death Valley and how they came to be.	3-8	QuickTime Video
Geology of North Dakota Badlands See how the geology of the North Dakota badlands has changed over time in this video segment from NatureScene, featuring the landscape at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.	3-8	QuickTime Video
The Grand Canyon: Ancient Mountains This video segment adapted from NOVA features the twisted and melted forms of the Grand Canyon's oldest rocks, the 1.7-billion-year-old Vishnu Schist.	6-12	QuickTime Video
The Grand Canyon: Evidence of Earth's Past In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a fossil found among the Grand Canyon's rock layers reveals the existence of a shallow sea that once covered most of western North America.	6-12	QuickTime Video
The Grand Canyon: How It Formed This video segment adapted from NOVA uses animation to present the theory of how the Grand Canyon was formed and features rare footage of a phenomenon known as debris flow.	3-12	QuickTime Video
The Grand Canyon: Its Youngest Rocks This video segment adapted from NOVA features the youngest rock formations in the Grand Canyon, lava dams, and how they are subject to the eroding power of water.	6-12	QuickTime Video
The Grand Canyon: The Top Two Rock Layers This brief video segment adapted from NOVA uses illustrations and the well-preserved footprints of a small reptile to portray the history of the Grand Canyon's top two rock layers.	3-12	QuickTime Video
How a Dinosaur Became a Fossil This interactive resource adapted from the Museum of Paleontology at the University of California, Berkeley shows how a dinosaur can be buried under sediment after it dies, become a fossil, and then become exposed and discovered by paleontologists.	3-8	Flash Interactive
How Did Life Emerge Here? This video segment adapted from NOVA describes the emergence of life on the islands of Hawaiʻi from a barren volcanic platform under the ocean waves to the rich explosion of life that covers the many climate zones of the islands today.	3-12	QuickTime Video
How The Ohio River Was Formed This video segment adapted from KET's Where the River Bends demonstrates how climate change and glacier movement during the Ice Ages destroyed the old Teays River and created the Ohio River, Kentucky's northern border.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Inclusion Conclusions Learn where diamonds originate and how inclusions trapped within diamonds help geologists determine their age in this video segment from Nature.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Life Before Oxygen This video segment adapted from Interactive NOVA features evidence of life on Earth before the atmosphere contained a rich supply of oxygen.	3-12	QuickTime Video
Mammals Get Their Chance In this video segment adapted from NOVA, animations of an asteroid hitting Earth are used to illustrate this widely accepted theory of dinosaur extinction and the resulting conditions that favored mammals.	K-5	QuickTime Video
Natural Climate Change in Djibouti, Africa In this video segment adapted from NOVA, animations are used to illustrate how change in the tilt of Earth's axis produces dramatic climate change over thousands of years.	3-12	QuickTime Video
Nisqually Glacier at Mount Rainier Observe the Nisqually Glacier at Mount Rainier in this video segment from NatureScene.	3-8	QuickTime Video
Plate Tectonics: An Introduction This video segment adapted from Discovering Women uses animations to introduce the theory of plate tectonics and to explain why earthquakes occur and how continents form.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Plate Tectonics: Further Evidence This video segment adapted from A Science Odyssey uses animation and archival footage to provide an overview of the theory of plate tectonics.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Plate Tectonics: Lake Mead, Nevada Using animations to illustrate the theory of plate tectonics, this video segment adapted from Discovering Women takes you to Lake Mead, Nevada, to see visual evidence of how plate movement has been stretching the North American continent.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Plate Tectonics: The Hawaiian Archipelago This video segment adapted from NOVA uses animation to show the relationship between the movement of a tectonic plate and whether volcanoes on the Hawaiian Islands are active or dormant.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Plate Tectonics: The Scientist Behind the Theory This video segment adapted from A Science Odyssey profiles Alfred Wegener, the scientist who first proposed the theory of continental drift. Initially criticized, his theory was accepted after further evidence revealed the existence of tectonic plates and showed that these plates move.	6-12	QuickTime Video
The Scientific Process Students explore how they can use the processes of science to learn about events that occurred in the past. They make observations, develop a hypothesis, and use evidence to test their hypothesis to see how well it holds up in light of their evidence.	6-8	Lesson Plan
Secrets in the Salt This video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW describes a team of scientists searching for evidence of ancient life within a salt deposit that formed 250 million years ago.	6-12	QuickTime Video
See a Reversal View a computer model simulation from NOVA Online that illustrates what happens during a magnetic field reversal, an infrequent occurrence that may be currently underway.	6-12	QuickTime Interactive
T. Rex Blood? Learn about the surprising finding of preserved soft tissue in dinosaur fossils—including possible blood vessels and red blood cells—in this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Types of Fossils This interactive resource adapted from the University of California Museum of Paleontology features images of body fossils, trace fossils, and a combination of the two.	3-12	Flash Interactive
The Wall of Time This illustrated timeline from the Lunar and Planetary Institute provides a journey through four-and-a-half billion years of time from the birth of our solar system to its current existence today.	6-12	JPEG Image
What Killed the Dinosaurs? This Evolution Web feature uses animations to explore how evidence can support a variety of hypotheses surrounding the mystery behind the extinction of the dinosaurs.	3-12	Shockwave Interactive
When Did the First Americans Arrive? In this video segment adapted from NOVA, recent archeological evidence leads scientists to revise existing theories about human migrations into the Americas around the time of the last ice age.	6-12	QuickTime Video