Earth History

Overall Expectations

By the end of this course, students will:
* demonstrate an understanding of the concept of geological time;
* analyse and assess geological evidence that suggests that life forms, climate, continental positions, and the Earth’s crust have changed over time;
* explain the importance of the geological and fossil records for our understanding of the Earth’s history, and describe their use in related economic activities.

Specific Expectations

Understanding Basic Concepts

By the end of this course, students will:
* demonstrate an understanding of the differences between relative and absolute dating techniques as they apply to natural systems;
* describe and explain the various methods of isotopic age determination, giving for each the name of the isotope, its half-life, its effective dating range, and some of the materials (e.g., minerals and rocks) that it can be used to date;
* describe some processes by which fossils are produced and/or preserved (e.g., original preservation, carbonization, replacement, permineralization, and mould and cast formations), and sketch a representative fossil of a foraminifer, mollusc, brachiopod, echinoderm, arthropod, coelenterate, vertebrate, graptolite, and plant;
* describe the diversity of life in the Proterozoic, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic eras and the ranges of important groups of fossils that date from each.

Developing Skills of Inquiry and Communication

By the end of this course, students will:
* use and interpret information from appropriate sources (e.g., a sequence diagram, geological maps showing major geological regions and associated rock types) in describing the geological history of an area (e.g., Ontario);
* investigate and analyse various types of preserved geological evidence of changes that have taken place in Earth history (e.g., past glaciations, tectonic activity, plate movement);
* demonstrate an understanding of the evolution of life, as revealed through fossil analysis;
* demonstrate the ability to use the geological time scale as an aid in interpreting the history of a sequence of strata;
* investigate and interpret the significance of an unconformity preserved in a sequence of strata (e.g., the boundary between Paleozoic and Precambrian rocks in southern Ontario);
* investigate radioactive decay and the concept of half-life determination (e.g., design a simple, safe experiment that provides a model of half-life decay of radioactive elements);
* analyse the evidence used to determine the age of the Earth (e.g., radiometric dating of geological materials), and outline the historical evolution of attempts to establish the Earth’s chronology.

Relating Science to Technology, Society, and the Environment

By the end of this course, students will:
* illustrate the geological time scale and compare it to human time scales (e.g., develop a series of timelines to represent their life, their family tree or history, the history of Canada, the history of civilization, the geological history of the local area, and the major events in Earth history, and compare the scales necessary to present this data on a 1m strip);
* demonstrate an understanding of the significance of paradigm shifts in the development of geological thinking (e.g., contrast the principles of uniformitarianism and catastrophism);
* demonstrate an understanding of the importance of fossils in the petroleum and mining industries as tools for biostratigraphic correlation and as indicators of depositional environments;
* describe Canadian contributions to our knowledge about absolute age dating and to technological applications based on this knowledge.