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In this Teacher / Researcher Collaborative (TRC) event, we learned about why studying Earth's past is crucial in order to understand the present and future of our planet. We examined lessons from topics in paleontology, paleoclimate, and paleoceanography from Anna Golub at Scripps Oceanography, UC San Diego. Click the video below to watch the recorded event and look below for the key resources that were shared.
Listed in the table below are some examples of resources available for teachers to use in the classroom.
Paleo-timescales are important to integrate into climate education because they offer context for anthropogenic climate change. Earth has been around for a long time, and from the paleo record, we can learn that yes, climate has changed before over time— but by actually examining these past climate changes, their rates, their scale, we can understand why modern anthropogenic climate change has such harrowing implications. The paleo-record also helps us to understand concepts such as evolution, how our planet's natural climate system works, and the interactions between climate and life over time. We can examine various times climate has changed before in Earth's past to consider what will happen in the modern.
Resource and Link | Description |
Includes all the content and figures from the research presentation. | |
Activity from the Smithsonian Institution demonstrating how paleobotany can show us past climate changes | |
Activity from UC Berkeley demonstrating how fossils can act as recorders of ocean temperature through time, therefore showing us the ocean temperatures of the ice ages | |
A search engine for paleoclimatic data | |
One resource for finding activities to teach about paleo, from Carleton College | |
App with interactive geologic maps | |
Regional fossil field guides | |
Resource for teaching about evolution | |
One guide for teaching about climate change |