Life and Climate

Contents

Chapter Titles	Investigations	Stay Current
1. Discovering the Atmosphere	1.1 Air Pressure 1.2. Draw Earth Cutaway
2. Where Did Earth’s Atmosphere Come From?	2.1 Timeline	Chapter 2
3. How Do Scientists Play the Dating Game?	3.1 Half-Life Decay	Chapter 3
4. The Beginning of Life on Earth		Chapter 4
5. The Origin of Our Oxygen-Rich Atmosphere		Chapter 5
6. How and When Did Complex Life Begin?		Chapter 6
7. Earth’s Shifting Crust	7.1 Convection Currents	Chapter 7
8. Highs and Lows Over the Past 750 Million Years	8.1 Dissolving Rocks	Chapter 8
9. What Happened to the Dinosaurs?		Chapter 9
10. The Ice Ages		Chapter 10
11. Climate and Human Evolution		Chapter 11
12. Climate and Culture	12.1 Importance of Language 12.2 Greenlander Survival	Chapter 12
13. What Does Earth’s Past Tell Us About Our Future?	13.1 Timeline II 13.2 Earth’s Future	Chapter 13

Overview

Students find the story of how tiny plants brought oxygen to the Earth’s atmosphere and how changing climates may have brought about the evolution of our human ancestors in Africa five million years ago. They construct timelines and find out how we know where to place milestones in the development of life. They learn about the gradual acceptance of tectonic plate theory and how the movement of tectonic plates is now thought to cause the climate changes that affected the evolution of life. In one investigation students experiment with dissolving rocks to explore the long term carbon cycle which has contributed to the long term stability of the Earth’s climate. Finally, they consider what the Earth’s past can tell us about its future.