Overview

Brief Module Summary

• past biodiversity;
• geologic age and geologic events;
• the abiotic and biotic factors of past ecosystems;
• the behavior and interactions of individuals of the past and the evolution of structures and functions.

Learning Objectives

In Biodiversity students will learn that:

• fossils help us understand how biodiversity has changed through time.
• fossils help us understand how organisms are related.
• most organisms that lived in the past are now extinct.
• fossils provide evidence of mass extinctions.
• the extinction of one species can affect other organisms.
• recognizing changes in past biodiversity can give us clues about how biodiversity is changing today.

In Geologic Time students will learn that:

• the position of layers of rocks and fossils tell us about their relative ages (superposition).
• fossils found in only one particular layer of rock all over the world are called index fossils.
• index fossils can help us establish the age of rock layers in different parts of the world.
• fossils help us learn about past geologic events such as the formation of mountains and the movement of continents.

In Paleoecology students will learn that:

• fossils provide clues about both abiotic and biotic factors of past ecosystems.
• fossils provide evidence about the changes in climate and temperature of past ecosystems.
• fossils can give us clues about how organisms interacted with one another.

In Past Lives students will learn that:

• some fossils can tell us about ages of individual organisms.
• fossils can provide evidence about individual, family, and social behavior of organisms.
• fossils can show how some features evolved and how the functions of these features have changed.

Prerequisites