GEOLOGIC TIME: PRINCIPLES & APPLICATIONS
Tiffany Rivera, University of Missouri-Columbia; Victor Ricchezza, Georgia State University
Average inquiry level: Structured This inquiry-based lab about the principles of relative and numerical dating allows students to apply reason and logic to determine the order of geologic events, to experimentally ...

Relative Geologic Time and the Geologic Time Scale
Bret Bennington, Hofstra University
Group simulation of the development of the geologic time scale illustrating concepts of correlation and relative time. Extremely effective for teaching the significance of the geologic time scale.

Relative and Absolute Geologic Time with Maps and Spreadsheets
Eileen Herrstrom, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and takes ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students apply stratigraphic principles for relative dating and basic equations of isotopic systems for absolute dating and ...

Counting Critters: Using the Paleobiology Database to track fossil diversity through geologic time
Rowan Lockwood, College of William and Mary
Students learn how to use the Paleobiology Database (PBDB) to develop a diversity curve showing changes in global biodiversity through time. They then use this curve to explore major events in the history of life, ...

Teaching geologic time and rates of landscape evolution with dice
Kate Ruhl, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Landscape evolution provides a convenient framework for understanding geologic time and rates because students can observe how processes like erosion and deposition shape their surroundings. In this example, students build 3-D sandbox models based on topographic maps and design and stage a "virtual adventure race." Sandbox landscapes are used to illustrate erosional processes,while local examples are used to discuss landscapes as transient or steady over different time- and length scales. Dice experiments illustrate radioactive decay and the shape of the age equation curve, and 14C dating, geochronology and thermochronology are introduced as "stopwatches" that start when a plant dies, a crystal forms, or a rock nears the surface and cools to a certain temperature. The sandbox model and thermochronometer "stopwatches" are combined to measure erosion rates and rates of landscape change. Ultimately, model rates (cm/hour) calculated from stopwatch times on the order of seconds can be related to geologic rates (km/My) calculated from real million-year-old samples.

My Geologic Address: Locating Oneself in Geologic Time and Process
Kip Ault, Lewis & Clark College
Students locate their homes on local, regional, and global scale geologic maps. They build up an "address" describing their location in geological terms based on the features of the maps, from local bedrock to regional and global tectonic features.

Global Change in Local Places
DATA: SHALDRIL Core Data; NOAA Pollen data TOOL: GeoMapApp SUMMARY: Import Antarctic sediment core data files into GeoMapApp to create maps and graphs. Use data to infer past climate conditions based on current vegetation distributions.

Investigating the Geologic Time Scale: Creating posters to Display Trends in Geologic Time
kim Atkins
This observational inquiry activity involving careful descriptions of rocks and fossil including age will be used to create a scalar accurate geologic time scale. Students will observe and learn that the geologic time scale was created based on changes in fossil, rock, and atmospheric changes.

Relative Dating of Geologic Materials
Steve Mattox, Grand Valley State University
This lessons allows students to constuct the basic principals used to understand relative geologic time and the skills used to construct the geologic time scale.

A LONG, LONG time ago: geologic timescales
Elizabeth Johnson, James Madison University
Students compare their pre-conceived impressions of events on the geologic time with the actual positions of these events on a 45.5' geologic timescale.