Jurassic Period: 199.6 - 145.5 million years ago

California Content Standards in this Unit:

Earth and Life History (Earth Sciences)

1. Evidence from rocks allows us to understand the evolution of life on Earth. As a basis for understanding this concept:
1. Students know Earth processes today are similar to those that occurred in the past and slow geologic processes have large cumulative effects over long periods of time.
2. Students know the history of life on Earth has been disrupted by major catastrophic events, such as major volcanic eruptions or the impacts of asteroids.
3. Students know that the rock cycle includes the formation of new sediment and rocks and that rocks are often found in layers, with the oldest generally on the bottom.
4. Students know that evidence from geologic layers and radioactive dating indicates Earth is approximately 4.6 billion years old and that life on this planet has existed for more than 3 billion years.
5. Students know fossils provide evidence of how life and environmental conditions have changed.
6. Students know how movements of Earth's continental and oceanic plates through time, with associated changes in climate and geographic connections, have affected the past and present distribution of organisms.
7. Students know how to explain significant developments and extinctions of plant and animal life on the geologic time scale.

Marine environment during the Cretaceous Period - 145.5 - 65.5 million years ago

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You and your partner will conduct research on one or more assigned geologic time epochs/periods/eras/eons.  Together, your class will research the entire geologic time scale.  Find out as much as you can through research of reputable sites and make a PowerPoint presentation to inform the rest of the class.  Essentially, you and your partner need to become the class experts in your area of time research.

Project Sequence:

1. With your partner, use the internet resources below and take notes about your assigned time eons/eras/periods/epochs.  Search for other sites with caution.  Evaluate every site for credibility - see your teacher for help with this.  
2. Note the websites you used for research in your presentation. 
3. Build a PowerPoint or Google Doc Presentation that will inform the rest of the class.  Use artistic pictures of your time period throughout the presentation to give us a sense of what the planet was like at the time.  WARNING: plagiarism is a serious offense!  We will review summarizing, paraphrasing, and use of references in class.
4. Give your presentation to the class.  The rest of us will be taking notes! 
5. Turn in your presentation PPT file by flash drive or through sharing in Google Docs.

Presentation Guidelines: 

Your Presentation must have the following:

• Title Page stating time period(s) researched, you and your partner's names, and an image of a fossil or geologic specimen for the time period with a caption. 
• Description of time: years your time period(s) span, subdivisions in the time period, image or chart showing where your time period fits in the geologic time scale, and explanation of the name of the time period and its subdivisions. Use images with captions as much as possible.
• Slide(s) explaining the Earth's conditions at the time - what was the land, oceans, atmosphere like?  Show an image with a caption if you can find an artist's depiction of what the earth might have looked like.  Show an image of where the continents might have been. Use images with captions as much as possible.
• Slide(s) explaining what life was like during the time.  Use images with captions as much as possible.
• Slide(s) outlining the major events that happened during your time period.  If you researched more than one time period, please separate events into time periods.  Use images with captions as much as possible.
• Information and image references must be included on every slide with the title and address of source websites.  This should be small but legible at the bottom of every slide.

Helpful Research Links: